Business

At China's largest online retailer, TaoBao, customers can now buy literally everything from discounted groceries, apparel and pet food to defaulted loans on their favorite bankrupt steel company or that awesome condo complex in that unoccupied 'Ghost City' they've always adored. 

As an example, you could purchase this lovely snack(?)....

...or this portfolio of 118 non-performing loans from some companies in Yunnan province....

The US Treasury sold $24 billion in 3 Year paper at a yield of 1.573%, the highest since 1.63% in March and above the 6-month average of 1.52%, if stopping through the When Issued of 1.576% by 0.3bps.

The internals were also solid, with the bid-to- cover at 2.87, below June's 3.00 however, again better than the 6-MMA of 2.81. Total bids of $69.4b for $24.5b in notes sold vs six previous auction average of $69.5b in bids for average of $26.0b in notes sold

Well they "built it", but in May, "no one came." Wholesale Inventories rose a better-than-expected 0.4% MoM but sales tumbled worse-than-expected 0.5% (the 3rd monthly decline in a row).

Inventories reversed April's decline...

But sales keep falling... and accelerating...

Automotive inventories rose 0.7% MoM (against April's 1.4% drop) but Automotive sales dropped 0.5% in April.

As Jim Reid writes, "it's been a very dull 24 hours" in the markets, so to pass the time the Deutsche strategist recapped his bigger picture thoughts "on government bond yields given the sell-off of the last two weeks." Hardly surprising, he goes along with the consesus, and expects yields to rise as more central banks turn hawkish (for reasons we have discussed on countless occasions, most recently yesterday) although what is interesting is Reid's take on what happens after the initial reaction, and it's here that the gloom descends because in a world with 327% debt/GDP...

Blue Apron is trading down 7% in the pre-market, down over 30% from its IPO-day highs and down 25% from the IPO/Open price... in 10 days. Today's decline, following SNAP's crash yesterday, seems catalyzed by the first analyst rating since the IPO.. at $2!

As Bloomberg reports, the stock got its first analyst rating since the June 28 IPO; the company’s business model has severe cost challenges and intensifying competition,:

Northcoast Research analyst Chuck Cerankosky writes in note...