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Sam Ro September 1, 2015 futures - Finviz Global markets are getting smoked again. Dow futures are down 315 points, S&P 500 futures are down 40 points, and Nasdaq futures are down 93 points. It's a bloodbath in Europe, with Britain's FTSE, Germany's DAX, France's CAC 40, and Spain's IBEX all down by more than 2%. Asian markets closed deep in the red, with Japan's Nikkei plunging 3.8%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng falling 2.2%, and China's Shanghai Composite tumbling 1.3%. Here's a quick roundup of the key headlines we've gotten since US markets closed on Monday. (snip)

Sam RoAugust 30,2015US futures are trading in the red, signaling more volatility for the US stock markets when they open on Monday Dow futures are down 177 points, S&P futures are down 22 points, and Nasdaq futures are down 46 points. This follows what's being interpreted as hawkish comments from Stanley Fischer, Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve. "Given the apparent stability of inflation expectations, there is good reason to believe that inflation will move higher as the forces holding down inflation dissipate further," Fischer said on Saturday during a panel at the Kansas City Fed's Economic Symposium in Jackson...

Former Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher made sound remarks when discussing the current market meltdown with CNBC on Tuesday. Although he is incorrect in his assertion that the United States central bank will do what’s right for the national economy and avoid monitoring daily activity reports, he was right that investors are addicted to easy money from quantitative easing, otherwise known as QE. “I don’t think there is a single member of the FOMC that’s going to react to one day’s market activity,” Fisher told the business news outlet. “Nobody on that committee would like to see that continue,...

Bill Bonner, Bonner and Partners August 27, 2015BALTIMORE, Maryland – Is Donald Trump broke yet? We don’t know. But at the end of the first quarter, investors held about $24 trillion in stocks. Stock prices are down about 10% since then… leaving the rich $2.4 trillion less rich. Government bonds have generally gone up. Junk-grade corporate bonds have gone down. And real estate? It takes longer to react. Real estate is not “marked to market” immediately. Buyers and sellers discover prices slowly. Phony WealthThe “wealth” created in Stage III of the U.S. credit boom was largely phony. It came as...

August 27, 2015 Dan_Norcini Dr. Copper apparently does not approve of the prescription ordered by the Chinese authorities to stem the slowdown in that nation, namely another 25 basis point interest rate reduction and a lowering of bank reserve requirements. The red metal cannot sustain any upside action for long before sellers emerge to whack it again. This is number one of my THREE BIG C’s, Copper, Crude oil and Cotton. So what exactly are the other two C’s telling us? (snip)

David Scutt, Business Insider Australia August 26, 2015 The outlook for Chinese economic growth is not as bad as some commentators are suggesting, and while it is uncertain, it is certainly not collapsing. The view presented by Goldman Sachs' portfolio strategy research team, in a note released earlier this week, suggests that Chinese economic growth will recover in the final quarter of this year on the back of flexibility with fiscal, monetary, and reform policy. Here's Goldman on the recent slowdown in China's growth momentum: China growth has slowed meaningfully in recent months, as evidenced by the disappointing official data,...

David Scutt, Business Insider Australia August 26, 2015Chinese stocks have finished Thursday’s morning session sharply higher. At the mid-session the benchmark Shanghai Composite index is up by 1.55% following three days of savage losses. Despite the gain, the index is still down 15.26% for the week. All sectors are currently trading higher with industrials, up 2.8%, topping the list. (snip)

Myles Udland August 26, 2015The rally stuck. After markets surged early on Wednesday, the market started to give up its gains and a replay of Tuesday's action — when the Dow gained more than 400 points but closed down 200 — seemed in the cards. But in the final hour of trading stocks rocketed higher, finishing near their highest levels of the day. On a points basis, this was third-largest daily gain for the Dow ever, while the S&P 500 had its best day since November 2011. But the main story of markets in recent weeks — which is that...

Myles Udland August 26, 2015 For the second day in a row, US stock futures are surging. Near 7:15 a.m. ET, Dow futures were up 300 points, S&P 500 futures were up 39 points, and Nasdaq futures were up 84 points. Wednesday morning's rally in US futures follows an ugly day on Tuesday, which saw stocks rally sharply early in the day before a huge sell-off in the final hour of trading. All told, the Dow fell more than 600 points from its peak on Tuesday to the market close. On Tuesday, all three major US indexes closed in the...

David Scutt, Business Insider Australia August 26, 2015Despite further monetary policy easing from the People's Bank of China and restrictions on some forms of futures trading, Chinese stocks fell yet again on Wednesday. Whatever word you choose to describe it — chaotic, wild, skittish, or others — the movements during the session were ridiculously rapid. Stocks opened higher, then tanked, then roared higher again before sliding into the close. It's truly head-spinning stuff, but increasingly familiar for those who have been watching closely. (snip)

Myles Udland August 25, 2015 Stocks had another brutal day on Tuesday, closing in the red after a furious rally early in the day was completely erased in the final hour of trading. On Tuesday morning, the Dow was up as many as 420 points in a big bounce after Monday's 588-point loss. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were also up nearly 3% early on Tuesday. The market, however, couldn't hold onto its gains in a disappointing close, and when all was said and done, the Dow finished about 600 points off its highs while the S&P had its biggest...

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”—Martin Luther King Jr. There’s an ill will blowing across the country. The economy is tanking. The people are directionless, and politics provides no answer. And like former regimes, the militarized police have stepped up to provide a façade of law and order manifested by an overt violence against the citizenry. Despite the revelations of the past several years, nothing has changed to push back against the American police state. Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats...

Shanghai shares crumbled from fresh selling on Tuesday as a rout shows no sign of slowing down in the market as investors flee the market. The Shanghai Composite Index opened at 3,004.13 point, down 6.41 per cent, or 205.87 points. The CSI300 index of Shanghai-Shenzhen large cap stocks opens at 3,070.01 , down 6.27 per cent or 205.52points. The Shenzhen Composite Index opens at 1,751.28, down 6.97 per cent or 131.18 points. The NASDAQ-style ChiNext Price Index dropped 6.94 per cent, or 149.30 points to open at 1,996.04..

Tyler Durden 08/24/2015 In a just released letter to clients, the head of the world's largest hedge fund delivers one of his usual sermons about the economy as a perpetual motion machine, affected by central banks, and where interest rates are supposed to boost asset returns by being below "the rates of return of longer-term assets." None of that is terribly exciting and it is in fitting with what Bridgewater has said for a long time (incidentally, it is curious that just over the weekend, the FT released a piece in which a "US asset manager warns over risk parity"...

Matt Smith August 24, 2015 One hundred and eleven years after the birth of Count Basie, and the ongoing rout in the crude complex is in full swing today. Downhill one-way traffic continues amid headlines such as ‘No End in Sight for Oil Glut‘ and ‘Oil Poised for Longest Weekly Losing Streak Since 1986 Amid Glut‘. As the headlines get more apocalyptic, and the price projections get lower (this week: $15 oil, no, $10 oil), the more it feels like we are approaching a turning point. Or at least a whipsaw. Looking at the overnight data releases, China has served...

Raul_I_Meijer August 24, 2015 After losing 11% last week, Shanghai this morning was down almost -9% at one point, after lunch went back up to -6.5%, and ended its day at -8.49%. A Black Monday for sure, but is this the BIG ONE? It really doesn’t matter one bit. Unless perhaps you persist in calling your self an investor, in which case we pity you, but not for losing your shirt. Because God knows we’ve said enough times now that there are no functioning markets anymore, and therefore no-one who can rightfully lay claim to the title ‘investor’. Plenty amongst...

Myles Udland August 24, 2015Larry Summers, who was very nearly chairman of the Federal Reserve, thinks there is almost no reason for the Fed to raise rates right now. Writing in The Financial Times on Monday, Summers argues that the Fed will be risking setting off a financial crisis by electing to raise rates at some point this year, as it has made clear it plans to do. Here's the heart of Summers' impassioned case against the Fed doing anything: There may have been a financial stability case for raising rates six or nine months ago, as low interest rates...

After the Bloomberg commodity index crashed overnight, having tumbled for each of the past 4 years, this happened: BLOOMBERG COMMODITY INDEX SLIDES TO LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 1999 Said otherwise, the lowest level in the 21s centiry. Yup, rate hike any minute now.

Three weeks ago, when we last looked at the collapse in trade along what may be the most trafficked route involving China, i.e., from Asia to Northern Europe, we noted that while that particular shipping freight rate Europe had crashed some 23% on just one week, there was some good news: at least the Baltic Dry index was still inexplicably rising, and at last check it was hovering just above 1,100. That is no longer the case, and just as with everything else in recent months, the Baltic Dry dead cat bounce is now over, with the BDIY topping out...

Friday’s American stock market provided further evidence of instability in the nation’s economy, and even as financiers fear a possible fiscal disaster in September, there has been little coverage among U.S. media. But the state-run media of Russia is warning of what it calls America’s “economic apocalypse.” The Russian news service Sputnik, an agency launched by Russia’s state-owned Rossiya Segodnya in 2014 to “target global audiences with its non-mainstream take on world events,” predicts doom for the American economy next month. In a recent article, Sputnik cites several economists warning of catastrophe. It continues: “Most of the experts agree...