BREAKING: Chinese stock market ends 3% lower, w/ 1,200+ stocks down 10% daily limit; Chinese media admit gov “failure to boost market” today
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The Worst Threat We Face Is Right Here At Home
The Worst Threat We Face Is Right Here At Home
The Federal Reserve is ruining us
Last week, volatility made a long-overdue return to the US and global equity markets.
It began with a 2-day back-to-back violent drop. Day 3 saw a big rebound, swiftly followed by two more days of gut-wrentching losses. And then finally, last Friday, the day saw massive swings both high and low, ending with a huge upside run.
During this period the S&P 500 lost more than 300 points. Since then, though, the market has been steadily rising.
Is the danger past? Are the markets safe once more?
And if so, did the markets recover organically? Or were they rescued by The Plunge Protection Team (PPT)?
The answer matters.
If such intervention was rare we could almost justify it, if it took the form of simple, pre-arranged circuit breakers that shut the market down for a “cooling off” after they’ve moved too far, too fast. Indeed, these already exist, and are sufficient in our view.
But if such market interventions are routine, persistent, and generally depended on by the major market participants, then they’re highly destructive over the long term.
Sadly, we live with the latter.
Insiders get stinking rich by front-running the scheme (check). Normal adjustments are prevented (check), allowing dangerous bubbles of extreme overvaluation to form (check), while fostering malinvestment (check).
Do this long enough and you end up with a deformed economy, an eroded social structure, and markets that no longer function as appropriate mechanisms for capital distribution and economic signaling.
This is where we find ourselves today.
Modern-Day Soviet Crop Reports
In the former Soviet Union, the communist method of assuring economic progress was to set targets for production. Famous among them were the crop reports.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Chinese Stock Plunge Resumes With 1200 Stocks Halted Limit Down; Yellen, Greek Elections On Deck
Chinese Stock Plunge Resumes With 1200 Stocks Halted Limit Down; Yellen, Greek Elections On Deck
Just when the Chinese plunge protection team (and “arrest shortie” task force) seemed to be finally getting “malicious selling” under control, first we saw a crack yesterday when the composite broke the surge of the past three days as a result of yet another spike in margin debt funded purchases, but it was last night’s reminder that “good news is bad news” that really confused the stock trading farmers and grandmas, which goalseeked Chinese economic “data” beat across the board, with Q2 GDP coming solidly above expectations at 7.0%, and retail sales and industrial production both beating, but in the process raising doubts that the PBOC will continue supporting stocks.
After all, the only purpose of the stock bubble was to deflect attention from the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse elsewhere in the economy. So if Beijing is willing to telegraph that the worst is over for the economy, there is no further need for SHCOMP 5000 which can now be carefully deflated, as otherwise a violent bursting threatens China’s social stability.
As a result the Shanghai Comp tumbled -3.0% and Hang Seng slid -0.3% with markets showing a subdued reaction as the data does dampen calls for further actions by the PBoC. However that does not do justice to yet another day of Chinese stock insanity. This does:
