S&P 500

Following the latest set of global economic news, most notably a mediocre set of Chinese Official and Caixin PMIs, coupled with a mix of lackluster European manufacturing reports and an abysmal Japanese PMI, European, Asian stocks and U.S. stock index futures have continued yesterday's losses. Oil slips for 4th day, heading for the longest run of declines since April, as OPEC ministers gather in Vienna ahead of a meeting on Thursday to discuss production policy.

By now it is a well-known fact that corporations have no real way of generating organic profit growth in this economy (the recent plunge in Q1 EPS was a stark reminder of just that), so they are relying on two things to boost share prices: multiple expansion (courtesy of central banks) and debt-funded buybacks (also courtesy of central banks who keep the cost of debt record low), the latter of which requires the firm to generate excess incremental cash.

Traders gunned the market higher last week thanks to extremely low volume (most of Wall Street left early for the holiday weekend) and the usual performance (many funds have to record results at month end).

The S&P 500 has now slammed up against overhead resistance (red line). We are once again within spitting distance of the all-time highs.

Against this backdrop, earnings are in a free-fall. EPS are back at 2012 levels, while the S&P 500 is 70% higher than then:

After yesterday's US and UK market holidays which resulted in a session of unchanged global stocks, US futures are largely where they left off Friday, up fractionally, and just under 2,100. Bonds fell as the Federal Reserve moves closer to raising interest rates amid signs inflation is picking up. Oil headed for its longest run of monthly gains in five years, while stocks declined in Europe.

When it comes to the stock market, there is no single greater observable divergence right now than that between GAAP and non-GAAP earnings. As the chart below shows, while on a non-GAAP basis earnings have been hurting in recent years, with the LTM EPS of the S&P has declined to 116.4, down from 118.1 as of December 31, 2014, the real surprise is in GAAP EPS, which are back down to 88, a level last seen in 2007 when the market was about 500 points lower.