Nikkei 225

As most financial media will remind you, today is the 7 year anniversary of the market's lows hit on March 9, 2009, a day when the Wall Street Journal wondered "How low can stocks go", which took less than a week after Obama said on March 3 that "what you're now seeing is profit-and-earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it" (sic) and just days before the Fed officially launched its expanded QE1 asset purchasing program.

After yesterday's last hour selloff sent the S&P to the very edge of the critical support trendline which, as shown yesterday, meant 1980 had to be defended at all costs...

... so far the support has held, and in overnight trading European stocks have managed to rebound on the back of more levitation in oil, while US equity futures have ignored a drop in the USDJPY which touched 112.20 in morning trading, and have jumped by 0.5% as of this moment, up 10 points to 1,990.

Amid a strong 30 year auction overnight, long-dated Japanese Government Bond yields utterly collapsed. 30Y yields dropped 21bps - the biggest absolute drop in over 3 years and biggest percentage drop ever - to a record low 47bps. Since Kuroda unleashed NIRP, the entire JGB has been crushed and last night's rush for long duration debt (well at least there is some yield there?) has flattened the curve to record lows. For context, Japan's 30Y yield is now below US 2Y yield...

Nothing to see here...

Those algos who scrambled to paint yesterday's closing tape with that last second VIX slam sending the S&P back over 2,000, forgot one thing - the same thing that China also ignored - central bankers can not print trade, something we have repeated since 2011.

If it's a day ending in -day, it means a Dennis Gartman flip-flop is on deck. Here is a brief reminder of his "calls" from just the last few days:

Friday, February 26: Gartman covers his shorts, turns bullish.