China

That was quick.

Trump may have sensed that he appeared too conciliatory towards President Xi and China during his visit to Beijing, and so shortly after doubling down on his parting message to China by tweeting that "I don’t blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!"...

Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

It is easy for those of us in the West to overlook how important China has become to the world economy, and also the limits it is reaching. The two big areas in which China seems to be reaching limits are energy production and debt. Reaching either of these limits could eventually cause a collapse.

The legacy of the soon-to-retire PBoC governor, Zhou Xiochuan, will be that in sharp contrast to his western brethren, he warned that China’s credit bubble would burst before the fact. Two weeks ago, Zhou warned during the Party Congress that China’s financial system could be heading for a “Minsky moment” due to high levels of corporate debt and rapidly rising household debt (see here).

The overnight fireworks in Japan, which saw the Nikkei plunge by 860 intraday points and sent vol and volumes soaring (before recovering most losses), spooked traders in Asia and around the globe, and U.S. equity futures are red this morning, along with European shares and oil.