Federal Government

Yesterday morning, when musing on the day's key event namely Yellen's congressional testimony, we dismissed the most recent bout of European bank euphoria which we said "will be brief if not validated by concrete actions, because while central banks have the luxury of jawboning, commercial banks are actually burning through funds - rapidly at that - and don't have the luxury of hoping for the best while doing nothing." This morning DB has wiped out all of yesterday's gain.

While algos patiently await the only thing that matters for US stocks today which is Janet Yellen's testimony before Congress. expected to be released at 8:30 am (and previewed here), the rest of the world this morning is a hot mess of schizophrenic highs and lows.

Two months ago the Australian media, which unlike its US counterpart refuses to be spoon fed ebullient economic propaganda, called bullshit on the spectacular October job numbers, when instead of adding 15,000 jobs as consensus expected, Australia's Bureau of Statistics reported that a whopping 58,600 jobs had been added.  We covered this in "Australian Media Throws Up All Over 'Stellar' Jobs Report: "Don't Believe The Jobs Figures!"

It all started in mid/late 2014, when the first whispers of a Fed rate hike emerged, which in turn led to relentless increase in the value of the US dollar and the plunge in the price of oil and all commodities, unleashing the worst commodity bear market in history.

The immediate implication of these two concurrent events was missed by most, although we wrote about it and previewed the implications in November of that year in "How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed."

• Investors dump stocks (Reuters)
• Global Bond Rally Near `Panic' Level With Japan Yield Below Zero (BBG)
• Global Growth Fears Hit Bank Stocks (WSJ)
• GOP Race for Second in New Hampshire Intensifies (WSJ)
• N.H. Primary: Where Each 2016 Candidate Needs to Place to Build Momentum (WSJ)
• ‘Risk parity’ strategy shows strain (WSJ)
• U.N. fears for hundreds of thousands if Syria troops encircle Aleppo (Reuters)
• World's Negative-Yielding Bond Pile Tops $7 Trillion (BBG)