United States

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Thousands of years ago, as far back as 3000 BC, the ancient Egyptians had developed a highly advanced system of writing using hieroglyphic symbols.

The used hieroglyphs for numbers as well.

A single line, for example, represented the number 1. Two strokes represented 2. Nine strokes for the number 9.

Since the Egyptians had not yet invented the “zero” in 3000 BC, representing the number 10 required a new symbol– a sort of upside down horseshoe.

After numerous warnings from Goldman strategist David Kostin that stocks are expensive, most recently over the weekend when he wrote that  "investors will soon capitulate on their expectation of upside to 2017 EPS forecasts as they face the reality that the accretive impact from tax reform will not occur until 2018" and that "revisions to consensus EPS forecasts during the past few months have been negative for both 2017 and 2018" moments ago Goldman officially downagred equities.

The White House has announced a major retreat from the U.N. after Trump ordered a massive 50 percent cut in U.S. funding for United Nations programs.  The White House is scheduled to release its 2018 budget on Thursday which is expected to include cuts of up to 37 percent for spending on the State Department, the USAID, and other foreign assistance programs, including the U.N. (which amounts to around $10 billion a year). The Trump administration has repeatedly vowed to distance the U.S. from participating in the “corrupt” United Nations, signalling that it may leave the U.N. altogether.

As we first documented last week in "Mega-Bears Smell Blood As Mall REITs Tumble" and as Bloomberg followed up yesterday, looking at CMBS on the Mall REIT space, many have set their sights on mall REITs as the "next big short." However, an obvious question that has emerged is whether it is too late to go all in on this particular short, or whether as some have suggested, the bottom is in.  “The short feels crowded to us,” said Matthew Weinstein, principal at Axonic Capital, a hedge fund that specializes in structured products.

Conceived several years ago, "buy the (fucking) dip" was a joke among traders seeking to explain the market's nearly-instant upward mean reversion, which as we have alleged since 2009, has been pushed higher by central bank policy and various HFT strats. Since then it has, sadly, become perhaps the only "explanation" for the behavior of the most bizarre market traders have ever encountered.

Luckily, the buy the dip quote-unquote "market" may be about to end, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, if Bank of America is right.