Even as the damage from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma is still being tallied, a preliminary assessment released last week by Black Knight Financial Services estimated that as many as 300,000 borrowers in the vicinity of Houston could become delinquent on their loans and 160,000 could become seriously delinquent, or more than 90 days past due.
Back in January 2016, we reported that Pine River Capital Management, then run by noted hedge fund investor Steve Kuhn, was shuttering its Fixed Income fund, and returning roughly $1.6 billion to investors. The wind down was surprising for one of the industry's most prominent names: Kuhn was one of four managers who helped the Pine River Fixed Income Fund score some of the industry's biggest gains. They included a 93% return in 2009, fueled largely by bets on the housing market.
For the past 3 months, Bank of America strategist David Woo has been warning that the market is precariously unbalanced, and as a result the smallest shift away from being "priced to perfection", or spike in volatility, could lead to a waterfall event. As we first reported back in July, Woo first warned that between the ongoing standoff in Washington, and the seemingly endless showdown with North Korea, there are two "dangerous" games of chicken afoot, both of which could culminate in a market crash.
...because nothing says "sell protection" or "cover hedges" like a warmongering Trump addressing The UN and a clueless Fed set to announce balance sheet normalization...
US equity markets are open... Sell VIX Mortimer, Sell!
Sometimes you just have to laugh...
and after weakness from the EU open, the US open prompted algos to BTFD...
Financials ramped above their 50DMA...
Despite headlines from WSJ of "the most draconian measures ever" against Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency is trading up over $1100 from its post-China-"ban" lows and has topped $4100 once again this morning as the world slowly wakes up to the nonsense that shutting down a completely decentralized system is possible, and the fact that China has long-since lost any standing as a major trading hub in the cyrpto world.
Bitcoin just topped $4100 (up over $1100 from the lows last week)...