What’s $6 trillion between friends? “Everybody else was buying so I followed in their tracks…”
Global Capital Markets aggregate ‘wealth’ collapsed in the last two weeks… (bonds first, then stocks)…
79 of 94 global equity indices ended the week red…
China started badly and ended worse – biggest weekly loss since Jan 2016…
European stocks were a bloodbath, closing on their lows this week (second worst week since Jan 2016) at the lowest since Jan 2017…Italy was worst on the week (and is now in a bear market)
US equity markets were clubbed like baby seals…
Catching down to the rest of the world…
But a late Friday afternoon bounce flattered them in the end (see you Sunday night)…
It wouldn’t be ‘Murica if we closed red on a Friday…all of which lines up the perfect narrative that this confirms the worst is over
Take your pick of the headlines:
*S&P 500, DOW AVERAGE, NASDAQ 100 END WORST WEEK SINCE MARCH
*S&P 500 RALLIES 1.4% FOR BIGGEST GAIN SINCE APRIL
*NASDAQ 100 SURGES 2.8% IN BEST RALLY SINCE MARCH
All US equity sectors were red on the week led by Materials and Industrials (and Financials floundered today despite the earnings)…Utes outperformed (but were still down 1.7%)
On the month so far, it’s carnage:
Nasdaq 100 is on course for the worst month since Nov 2008
Small Caps are on course for the worst month since September 2011
S&P is on course for the worst month since August 2015 (China Deval)
All the major US equity indices ramped back up to their 200DMAs… (Russell well below, Dow to its 100DMA)
Interestingly, Value/Growth ended almost unchanged on the week…
FANGs were down on the week, but bounced today…
Small Caps joined Transports in the red YTD…
Tech, Consumer Discretionary, and Healthcare all together at the top as best performers of the year (but well off the highs) – all other sectors are red for 2018 with Materials worst…
US Equity breadth is a disaster…
VIX spiked almost 9 vols on the week – the biggest weekly jump since March, doubling since 10/3 as the curve massively inverts…
And the Put-Call Ratio is spiking…
HY Bonds were right… again!
Corporate bond breadth was also a catastrophe this week… as new 52-week lows spike in IG and HY…
Away from the bloodbath in stocks, bonds were notably bid… (maybe they just needed that day off on Monday?)
With 10Y Yields dropping most in 5 months (after last week’s biggest yield rise since Nov 2016)…
The yield curve flattened notably on the week…
The Dollar Index fell on the week (after two straight weeks higher)
But remains rangebound..
China fixed the yuan lower every day this week, clearly signaling something to Trump, as yesterday’s epic spike in Yuan roundtripped today..
Crypros were not spared from the carnage – dumping on Wednesday night when Asia opened (and KRW plunged)…
Black Gold was battered (global growth/demand and inventories) as Yellow Gold surged…
WTI Crude had its worst week since May, testing down to a $70 handle…
Oil tracked stocks – simple
Gold just had its best two-week gain since January…
Silver did not managed new highs…
Gold in Yuan remains well managed…
* * *
What does it mean when the most systemically important banks in the world are down 26% from their highs and accelerating lower?
As has become depressingly commonplace in contemporary society, street artist Banksy’s latest provocative anti-consumerist gesturehas been exposed as just another marketing stunt. As the Financial Times reports, auction house Sotheby’s has completed the sale of Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” painting – a sale that caused a stir in the art world when it self-destructed immediately after the auction-house gavel came down via a shredding mechanism hidden in the frame. Banksy’s handling services organization, Pest Control, has blessed the half-shredded painting as a new work, entitled “Love is in the Bin”, and the painting’s original winning bidder, an anonymous female European collector, has pressed ahead with the purchase, though she now has the option of re-selling it on the secondary market for an even larger premium.
The half-shredded painting is to go on public display at Sotheby’s London salerooms on Saturday and Sunday. Shocked art patrons looked on in horror a week ago when the painting, originally entitled “Girl With Balloon” self-destructed. But as many readers probably anticipated, the surprise shredding concept, which was incorporated in secret, was “integral” to the piece. Already, bidders had driven the price of the piece upwards from the expected 200,000 to 300,000 pounds to 1.04 million pounds. Now, experts say it could be worth many times that.
Sotheby’s said that, ahead of the sale, it had asked Pest Control for authorisation to remove the picture from the frame, to inspect it. The request was refused.
“We have handled many sales of Banksy artworks and, over the years, we have built a relationship of trust with his office, Pest Control,” Sotheby’s said in a statement.
“We asked on at least two occasions to check the work out of the frame, but we were told that the frame (which was glued) was integral to the work; breaking it would damage the work, and negatively impact its artistic and monetary value. As it turns out, the frame was integral to the concept of the artwork, just not in the way that we had expected.”
…And has only helped increase its value.
Since the painting has remained intact, albeit sliced to ribbons, art market professionals have said its notoriety is likely to have raised its market value. Following its quasi-destruction, a number of individuals subsequently approached the auction house with offers to buy the work.
At least four separate bidders drove up the price of the work at the sale, with the painting finally going to a telephone bidder whom Sotheby’s disclosed on Thursday was a female European collector. The purchase will be completed for £1,042,000, the original price achieved at auction including buyer’s premium.
After carrying out what has become his best-known stunt, the Bristol street artist later posted a video on his Instagram feed showing a hooded figure assembling an ornate gold picture frame equipped with a row of concealed scalpel blades and a number of electronic components.
Then again, maybe this was Banksy’s intention all along: Hoodwinking a wealthy art patron into paying a premium for a shredded canvas.
Looks like somebody threw a dead cat onto Wall Street’s luge run overnight to temporarily halt the rather ugly 2000 point slide in the Dow Jones Industrial Average – and plenty of freefall in other indices, including markets in other countries. A Friday pause in the financial carnage will give the hedge funders a chance to plant “for sale” signs along their Hamptons driveways, but who might the buyers be? Hedge funders from another planet, perhaps? You can hope. And while you’re at it, how do you spell liquidity problem?
Welcome to the convergence zone of the long emergency, where Murphy’s law meets the law of unintended consequences and the law of diminishing returns, the Three Amigos of collapse. Here’s where being “woke” finally starts to mean something. Namely, that there are more important things in the world than sexual hysteria. Like, for instance, your falling standard of living (and that of everyone else around you).
The meet-up between Kanye West and President D.J. Trump was an even richer metaphor for the situation: two self-styled “geniuses” preening for the cameras in the Oval Office, like kids in a sandbox, without a single intelligible idea emerging from the play-date, and embarrassed grownups all standing ‘round pretending it was a Great Moment in History. You had to wonder how much of Kanye’s bazillion dollar fortune was stashed in the burning house of FAANG stocks. Maybe that flipped his bipolar toggle. Or was he even paying attention to the market action through all the mugging and hugging? (He did have his phone in hand.) Meanwhile, Mr. Trump seemed to be squirming through the episode behind his mighty Resolute desk as if he had “woke” to the realization that ownership of a bursting epic global financial bubble was not exactly “winning.”
If I were President, I’d declare Oct 12 Greater Fool Day. (Nobody likes Christopher Columbus anymore, that genocidal monster of dead white male privilege.) The futures were zooming as I write in the early morning, a last roundup for suckers at the OD corral, begging the question: who will show up on Monday. Nobody, I predict. And then what?
The great false front of the financial markets resumes falling over into the November election.
The rubble from all that buries whatever is left of the automobile business and the housing market. The smoldering aftermath will be described as the start of a long-overdue recession — but it will actually be something a lot worse, with no end in sight.
The Democratic Party might not be nimble enough to capitalize on the sudden disappearance of capital. Their only hope to date has been to capture the vote of every female in America, to otherwise augment their constituency of inflamed and aggrieved victims of unsubstantiated injustices. It’s been fun playing those cards, and the Party might not even know how to play a different game at this point. Democratic politicians may also be among the one-percenters who watch their net worth go up in a vapor in a market collapse, leaving them too numb to act. The last time something like this happened, in the fall of 2008, candidate Barack Obama barely knew what to say about the fall of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing cascade of misery – though unbeknownst to the voters, he was already a hostage of Wall Street.
Complicating matters this time will be the chaos unleashed in politics and governing when the long-running “Russia collusion” melodrama boomerangs into a raft of indictments against the cast of characters in the Intel Community and Department of Justice AND the Democratic National Committee, and perhaps even including the Party’s last standard bearer, HRC, for ginning up the Russia Collusion matter in the first place as an exercise in sedition. The wheels of the law turn slowly, but they’ll turn even while financial markets tumble. And the threat to order might be so great that an unprecedented “emergency” has to be declared, with soldiers in the streets of Washington, as was sadly the case in 1861, the first time the country turned itself upside down.
First the good news: recall that yesterday the WSJ reported yesterday that Sears’ biggest secured lenders, which include Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, were pushing for a Chapter 7 liquidation due to their concerns that they could be further primed by secured debt and suffer recovery losses should the melting ice cube continue to operate with little hope of viability.
Now, according to Bloomberg, negotiations over Sears’ fate have moved away from a possible liquidation toward a plan that would keep some stores open through Christmas. That would mean that a Chapter 7 liquidation is no longer contemplated and that the company now envisions a Chapter 11 restructuring with Sears filing on Sunday at the earliest. To fund operations during the holiday season, negotiators are discussing a DIP loan of about $300 million to $500 million.
How many stores will be shut down as part of this latest plan to keep the 125-year old chain as a (far smaller) going concern? According to Reuters, Sears is planning to close up to 150 of its department and discount stores and keep at least another 300 open, while the fate of Sears’ remaining 250 stores uncertain and will likely be dependent on how much money the company can raise; the stores’ future could also hinge on Sears’ negotiations with landlords over their leases.
Some 90,000 jobs are at stake, according to Sears filings earlier this year.
In addition to dramatically shrinking its store base, America’s formerly largest retailers also hopes to sell stores and other assets, including its Kenmore appliances brand and home services business in court-supervised auctions while under bankruptcy protection during the Chapter 11 process. The auction stalking horse will be none other than Sears CEO Eddie Lampert (as well as its largest shareholder and creditor) who hopes to set an auction floor. It wouldn’t be surprising is he ends up owning the assets if/when other bidders fails to show.
Lampert could also help finance his bids for the assets by forgiving some of the money Sears owes him, as opposed to putting in more cash, Reuters reported on Thursday.
Separately Reuters reports that a key unresolved aspect of Sears’ negotiations with lenders involves setting deadlines for Sears to achieve specific business goals while under bankruptcy protections.
Finally, in terms of next steps, Sears will likely file for bankruptcy protection in New York as soon as Sunday night, though a court filing could slip into Monday.
Outspoken critic of The Fed and one of the few that can see through the endless barrage of bullshit to how this really ends, has laid out in a tweet “what happens next”…
Likely sequence of events:
1. Bear market;
2. Recession;
3. Deficits explode;
4. Return of ZIRP and QE;
5. Dollar tanks;
6. Gold soars;
7. CPI spikes;
8. Long-term rates rise;
9. Fed. forced to hike rates during recession
10. A financial crisis without stimulus or bailouts!
An independent audit of the key temperature dataset that is being used by climate models has exposed more than 70 problems with the data which render it “unfit for global studies.”
Problems include zero degree temperatures in the Caribbean, 82 degree C temperatures in Colombia and ship-based recordings taken 100km inland.
The audit has concluded that the studies are deliberately exaggerating temperatures to support a theory of global warming utilizing global averages that are far less certain than what is being forecast.
The audit has revealed that “that climate models have been tuned to match incorrect data, which would render incorrect their predictions of future temperatures and estimates of the human influence of temperatures.” Furthermore, the Paris Climate Agreement adopted 1850-1899 averages as “indicative” of pre-industrial temperatures is “fatally flawed.” The entire Paris Climate Agreement has an agenda to eliminate effectively the advancement of society and attempt to reset the clock to the pre-Industrial Revolution. This entire theory that before the Industrial Revolution, our planet’s atmosphere was somehow pristine and uncontaminated by human-made pollutants has been also proven to be completely bogus.
Bubbles trapped in Greenland’s ice has revealed that we began emitting greenhouse gases at least 2,000 years ago. The Romans even constructed the first aqueduct was built in 312 BC because there was a serious problem with water pollution. Seneca (c 4BC-65AD), the adviser to Nero, wrote in 61AD: “No sooner had I left behind the oppressive atmosphere of the city [Rome] and that reek of smoking cookers which pour out, along with clouds of ashes, all the poisonous fumes they’ve accumulated in their interiors whenever they’re started up, than I noticed the change in my condition.”
This new audit argues even the most simple basic quality checks had not been done on the HadCRUT4 data which is managed by the UK Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The audit exposed that estimates were made of the uncertainties arising from thermometer accuracy, homogenization, sampling grid boxes with a finite number of measurements available, large-scale biases such as urbanization and estimation of regional averages with non-complete global measurement coverage.
The audit has exposed the dishonesty in this entire scheme and it appears to be directed at the goal of reducing the population. Anomalies it has identified include at St Kitts in the Caribbean, the average temperature for December 1981 was zero degrees, normally it’s 26C. For three months in 1978, one place in Colombia reported an 82 degrees Celsius average – hotter than the hottest day on Earth. Then in Romania, one September the average temperature was reported as minus 46°C, which has never happened. The data showed that supposedly ships would report ocean temperatures from places up to 100km inland. The paper also points out that the most serious flaws identified was the shortage of data. For the first two years, from 1850 onwards, the only land-based reporting station in the Southern Hemisphere was in Indonesia. Then there were ship observations at the time but Australian records had not started until 1855 in Melbourne, behind Auckland which started in 1853. This data appears to have been just made up.
According to the HadCRUT4 calculation of coverage, it was almost 1950 before there was data from even half of the Southern Hemisphere was available. Yet they claim global warming has taken hold for 100 years prior. Then the Paris Climate Agreement takes the HadCRUT4 average from 1850 to 1899 as an “indicative” temperature or pre-Industrial Revolution. There is absolutely no possible way the data set being used to support all this Global Warming is even valid for any forecast.
Shortly after Robert Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to head up the Trump-Russia investigation, he was “drawn into a tense standoff” between Rosenstein and then-acting FBI director Andrew McCabe over exactly who would handle the probe, according to the Washington Post.
McCabe effectively tried to strong-arm the case away from Rosenstein and failed miserably.
When the confrontation occured in mid-may of last year, relations between the FBI and DOJ were strained. Former FBI director James Comey had just been fired by Trump, which was met with McCabe hastily opening a criminal obstruction case that he would ostensibly control.
The previously unreported episode involving Mueller, Rosenstein and McCabe — which occurred within days of Mueller’s becoming special counsel — underscores the deep suspicion between senior law enforcement officials who were about to embark on a historic, criminal investigation of the president. –WaPo
McCabe wanted Rosenstein to recuse himself from this new probe, reasoning that if Trump obstructed justice, Rosenstein would have played a role in that. Rosenstein also authored the memo recommending Comey’s firing, and signed off on spy warrants to surveil the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election.
The DOJ, meanwhile, expressed concern that McCabe may have acted recklessly by launching a new investigation so soon after Comey’s firing – which might be interpreted as an act of anger or revenge. Rosenstein wanted McCabe to recuse himself, reasoning that photos of McCabe supporting his wife’s state Senate campaign – after Hillary Clinton pal Terry McAuliffe reportedly funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to McCabe’s run for office. This, according to Rosenstein meant that McCabe “could not be considered objective in a political probe,” according to WaPo.
The most interesting detail I identified was why RR wanted McCabe recused. In the gap between Comey & Mueller, McCabe opened a criminal obstruction of justice case against @RealDonaldTrump! This also may explain a redaction in the Strzok/Page texts.
Those texts show an effort to take advantage of the fact the McCabe is Acting Director to lock in REDACTED in a formal chargeable way. I’ve always suspected it was @GenFlynn or @jaredkushner. But this story shows an effort to lock in an obstruction of justice charge against Trump
Ultimately, neither recused – while Mueller was appointed by Rosenstein to handle th Trump probe, and given wide latitude over the investigation. The Trump-Russia investigation was essentially yanked from McCabe and handed to Mueller.
In the end, neither Rosenstein nor McCabe recused from the Russia investigation, and it was clear in that meeting and after that Mueller would have a great degree of independence and control over his investigation, including management of Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents detailed to him. Mueller previously served as FBI director from 2001 to 2013. –WaPo
I think it is clear that the entire purpose of appointing Mueller was to take the case from McCabe. He clearly suspected that too & attacked RR to try & force his recusal. He failed. But McCabe clearly wanted RR off this case so he could run it.
It’s clear who won the battle; Rosenstein is still the Deputy AG, while McCabe was fired for authorizing self-serving leaks to the media regarding his handling of the Clinton email “matter.”
Rosenstein skipped out on an appearance in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday to discuss reports that he wanted to secretly record President Trump and then use the recordings to remove him from office under the 25th Amendment. Perhaps it’s because the FBI’s former top attorney, James Baker, reportedly told Congressional investigators that Rosenstein wasn’t joking.
Yesterday, the alternative media purge was boldly advanced in a coordinated effort to silence people who dissent from establishment views.
It’s just one more step toward a monopoly on information by those who hate freedom. At this rate, they’ll soon have unquestioned access to the minds of more than 2 billion people. And this should terrify everyone who wants to be free to question the status quo and to seek a wide range of information.
Hundreds of alternative media site administrators logged onto Facebook to discover that their accounts had been removed. Soon after, many of these sites and their writers found that their Twitter accounts had also been suspended.
Popular pages like The AntiMedia (2.1 million fans), The Free Thought Project (3.1 million fans), Press for Truth (350K fans), Police the Police (1.9 million fans), Cop Block (1.7 million fans), and Punk Rock Libertarians (125K fans) are just a few of the ones which were unpublished.
Why were these alternative media accounts removed?
The reason given doesn’t really add up.
Facebook told the LA Times that these pages had violated the company’s spam policies.
“Today, we’re removing 559 Pages and 251 accounts that have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior,” the company said in a blog post. “People will only share on Facebook if they feel safe and trust the connections they make here.” (source)
But this isn’t actually what their spam policy says. Here’s the policy.
We work hard to limit the spread of commercial spam to prevent false advertising, fraud, and security breaches, all of which detract from people’s ability to share and connect. We do not allow people to use misleading or inaccurate information to collect likes, followers, or shares.
Do Not:
Artificially increase distribution for financial gain
Create or use fake accounts or compromise other people’s accounts to
Impersonate or pretend to be a business, organization, public figure, or private individual
Attempt to create connections, create content, or message people
Restrict access to content by requiring people to like, share, or recommend before viewing
Encourage likes, shares, or clicks under false pretenses
Maliciously use login credentials or personally identifiable information by:
Attempting to gather or share login credentials or personally identifiable information
Using another person’s login credentials or personally identifiable information
But of course, since they too push political messages for profit (waaah, Trump!) as do all the other corporate media outlets out there, they changed their headline to “Facebook purged over 800 U.S. accounts and pages for pushing political spam.”
The fact that many of these accounts were also suspended by Twitter shortly thereafter should tell you that this is a coordinated effort to silence large swaths of the population.
Of course, the best coverage of this is from…Russia.
Sputnik News contacted many of the alternative journalists who were purged to get their take on what happened. You may recall that basically every blogger outside the establishment media was accused of being secretly Russian during the 2016 election by the Washington Post, so perhaps actual Russians have a vested interest in the truth coming out on this topic.
This signifies a re-consolidation of the media. Cable news media controlled the narrative for most of modern history, but the internet has lowered that barrier to entry and allowed the average person to become the media themselves. This obviously took market share and influence away from the traditional media, and it has allowed for a more diverse public conversation. Now it seems the platforms that have monopolized the industry are favoring mainstream sources and silencing alternative voices. So now, instead of allowing more people to have a voice, these platforms are creating an atmosphere where only powerful media organizations are welcome, just as we had on cable news.
People think that we are just providing an activist spin on the news, but they don’t see the families struggling to have their voice heard. For example, when someone is shot by police, mainstream media sources often just republish the press release from the police department, without presenting the victim’s side of the story. We give the victims and their families a voice, which is essential to keep power in check. This also goes for bigger issues like foreign policy as well; multiple full-scale invasions of Syria have been prevented because of information that the alternative media made viral. (source)
Nicholas Bernabe of The AntiMedia is another alternative journalist I consider a friend and support wholeheartedly. He’s worked tirelessly to be a voice of truth in a world of lies. He told Sputnik:
Our approach generally is to cover stories and angles that corporate media underreport or misreport and to amplify activist and anti-war voices and stories. All of our content is professionally fact-checked and edited.
I got into this line of work because I felt there was a need for media that challenged mainstream assumptions and biases in politics. I wanted to shed light on corruption and wrongdoing against oppressed peoples and cover the harsh truth about American foreign policy.
Over the last 28 days, we reached 7,088,000 people on Facebook.
The timing of this purge is rather dubious in my view, coming shortly before the midterm elections. This could be an attempt by Facebook itself to affect the outcome of the coming elections. The Twitter suspension caught me by surprise. I can only speculate that these suspensions were a coordinated effort to stifle our message ahead of the coming elections. (source)
Remember, this is coordinated, across multiple platforms.
Remember when this happened to Alex Jones?
Back in September, an assault was led by YouTube, Google, and Facebook against Alex Jones of Infowars fame. All of his accounts were shut down in quick succession, followed by his credit card processing companies and his newsletter service providers. I wrote at the time, “Alex Jones is just the beginning of this purge. It’s going to get much worse.”
Meanwhile, other dissenting voices were being silenced on social media with limited reach and “shadow banning.”
Infowars is a massive profit machine. But what happens when similar attacks are launched on smaller alternative media outlets? It hits us right in the wallet. And if they’re hit hard enough, they’ll cease to be able to function.
Jones has a lot of money so this may not be the end of him, but for most website owners, this would be the absolute end of our ability to do business. And to be able to bring the information we bring, we do have to run our websites as businesses. It’s far more expensive than most people realize to run a site. I know that my own operating costs every month are more than $2000. A site as big as Jones’s would be many times that amount. When all your avenues of monetization are cut off, it wouldn’t be hard for a site – and the dissent and information they share – to cease to exist. (source)
This is not just about Facebook or Twitter. It’s about the ability to find dissenting information, period. Google is in on it too. A leaked document from Google supported the idea of censorship.
Another Google document has found its way into the public domain, this time through Breitbart. The news publication reports that an 85-page briefing entitled “The Good Censor,” advises tech companies to “police tone instead of content” and to not “take sides” when censoring users…
Google might continue to shift with the times – changing its stance on how much or how little it censors (due to public, governmental or commercial pressures). If it does, acknowledgment of what this shift in position means for users and for Google is essential. Shifting blindly or silently in one direction or another rightly incites users’ fury…
The Google “internal research” even quotes outside experts like George Soros who express justification of censorship in non-U.S. markets, noting that Google should police “tone instead of content” and “censor everyone equally,” as Breitbart put it. (source)
There are 2 trillion Google searches per day. PER. DAY.
That should give you an idea of the power of something like Google. Combine it with billions of Facebook and Twitter users and you can easily see the influence wielded here. This is where free thought goes to die.
Ron Paul reminds us that truth is treason.
Ron Paul, former senator and the libertarian voice of reason, said when Jones was purged:
“You get accused of treasonous activity and treasonous speech because in an empire of lies the truth is treason,” Paul told the Russia-based news outlet. “Challenging the status quo is what they can’t stand and it unnerves them, so they have to silence people.”
“Some of us tell the truth about our government, they call us treasonous and say we’re speaking out of line and they’d like to punish us, and I think that’s part of what’s happening with social media,” Paul told RT, adding that he hopes anti-government or anti-war voices can eliminate their “dependency” on the current social media platforms.
“I’m just hoping that technology can stay ahead of it all and that we can have real alternatives to the dependency on Twitter and other companies that have been working hand in glove with the government,” Paul added. (source)
Here’s a video from last month with Dr. Paul’s thoughts about the social media purge. In it, he reminds us that Facebook is a private entity so they do have every right to remove the pages they wish. The danger – and the area in which this treads on the First Amendment – is their direct ties to the government.
This affects everyone.
If you’re reading this and you shrug because you, personally, don’t have a Twitter or Facebook account, you’re missing the bigger point.
That’s how many people will now only receive one side of the story on things like war, politics, guns, and current events. People will believe what they’re told because there is no alternative information presented. There are no questions asked. It’s literally the textbook definition of brainwashing.
Definition of brainwashing
1: a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas
2: persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship (source)
Social media is a massive source of information and influence today. If the information is rigged by entities that support socialism, gun control, and the end of privacy, we’re doomed. 2.2 billion active users will be bombarded with these messages without any real option for the other side of the story.
So regardless of whether you, personally, participate, this will color popular sentiment to a massive degree. It will grow the cognitive dissonance that assures people of things like “the government is your friend” and that “you don’t need to protect yourself, the police will take care of you.”
People who hate freedom will get unfettered access to the minds of 2 billion people. That should scare the crap out of you.
What can you do about the alternative media purge?
It’s possible but unlikely that social pressure on Facebook and Twitter will push the outlets into restoring the accounts of these alternative media networks. But even if they are restored, I suspect their reach will dwindle even further.
Here are a few things you can do:
Subscribe to the newsletters of websites you enjoy. Don’t count on seeing their work on social media. (You can subscribe to my newsletter here, incidentally.)
Support them financially if you can. Many sites have Patreon accounts or donate buttons
Bookmark them and visit regularly – if they have ads, your visits help them to make the money they need to stay afloat.
Share their articles on your own social media accounts. If they can’t get their work out there, we can help.
Join alternative social media outlets like Gab and MeWe.
The truth is getting harder and harder to find. You’re going to have to dig for it.
We’re watching the biggest campaign against freedom of speech and thought that has ever occurred in our part of the world.
The alternative media purge is just the beginning. And we should all be very concerned.
A battle royale of Wall Street quants has erupted.
In one corner, we have JPMorgan’s chief quant, Marko Kolanovic who moments ago said that the selling pressure from systematic, vol-targeting strategies such as risk-parity, CTAs, and trend following is mostly over and that the “current setup favors buying the dip.“
In the other corner, Barclays’s quant Manesh Deshpande completely disagrees with Kolanovic, and overnight wrote that while “some signs of capitulation are emerging” he thinks that “more selling is yet to come.“
A lot more.
Deshpande, like so many others in recent days, writes that Thursday’s sell-off was similar to the Feb 2018 liquidation, in that there was indiscriminate selling across equities and the ratio of put to call volume increased significantly.
However, unlike Kolanovic who is confident that the selling has now been mostly exhausted as we discussed earlier, Desphande warns that there are no signs of ETF selling which accompanies sell-offs.
In fact, over the past few days ETF flows have not turned negative yet and in fact have been mildly positive ($0.59 and $0.34 billion for the 10th October and 11th October, respectively). Thus this class of investors has not capitulated yet, according to the Barclays quant. Looking at history as a guide, ETF outflows between Feb 1st and Feb 9th earlier this year was ~$35Bn or 1.7% of AUM. Given the higher AUM currently, ETF investors are likely to sell ~$40Bn over the next few days.
It’s not just ETFs. Compared to the sell-off during February 18, 2018 which was driven by the VIX complex, the current sell-off options complex has been relatively orderly. In particular the SPX Skew as shown below has not steepened significantly despite the sharpness of the sell-off.
Meanwhile, Desphande notes that the market activity in SPX Put/Call option volume ratio has spiked “and is showing some signs of capitulation among investors as they scramble to buy protection.”
So in light of the recent surge in the VIX, which as Goldman calculated overnight was the 25th largest one day spike…
… the spike in equity volatility is likely to drive further systematic selling from Volatility Control Funds according to Barclays. How much?
To answer that question, Deshpande first estimates that the AUM in the Volatility control/Targeting strategies is ~$355Bn.These funds decrease their overall leverage to maintain fixed portfolio volatility (the higher the VIX, the more the selling), creating a positive feedback loop:
Since the forecasted volatility increases during market declines, these funds sell risky assets that would exacerbate the selloff. The precise details of how portfolio volatility is forecast are likely to vary across funds but we use the S&P Daily Risk Control 10% index (ticker: SPXT10UT) as a benchmark strategy. This index rebalances between S&P exposure and cash to maintain a 10% volatility target.
Next, the Barc quant calculates allocation trigger points, and writes that until the past week the allocation according to the benchmark strategy was 100% to equities. However, with the sell-off, the allocation has been reduced to ~65%.
Putting it all together, Barclays reaches a conclusion that is diametrically opposite that of Kolanovic, i.e., “we expect further systematic selling to the tune of ~$130Bn from these funds to reduce allocation to equities over the next couple of days.“
Putting this number in the context of the February 2018 VIXtermination crash, back the systematic volatility control funds sold over $150Bn exacerbating the volatility and lead to a second leg lower. So between the $80BN or so already sold, and the $130BN still left to sell, by the time the systematic selling is over, the aggregate vol-targeting deleveraging (selling) will be substantially higher than what was experienced in February when the S&P tumbled as much as 10%.
So in this Wall Street battle royal of quants, who will be victorious: JPMorgan’s cheerful Kolanovic or Barclays’ gloomy Deshpande? Considering that the Dow opened 400 points higher and shortly after noon turned negative, if this selling accelerates, especially into the critical last hour of trading, it may well be a technical knock out.
Russia is attempting to woo European countries like Germany into a program of reconstruction cooperation in Syria, where broad swathes of the country have been destroyed through seven years of grinding proxy war; however, Pentagon officials have charged Russia with wanting to “seize” Syria’s oil and gas resources.
This comes as the United States has resolved to keep its over 2,000 troops in the east of Syria while vowing zero reconstruction aid so long as Iranian troops and advisers are present in the country. This week a top US military official even went so far as to accuse Russia of seeking“to take advantage in any way they could” and that a “great power competition” for Syria will continue to shape its post-war future.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Leah Lauderback, who served as director of intelligence for Operation Inherent Resolve until June, told an Army conference that “Great power competition was an objective by Russia,” and that specifically they are looking to “seize” oilfields in Syria. But a Russian official has slammed the US and Europe as living in a“fantasy land” if they still have removal of Assad on the table as “radicals will take over that will slit people’s throats’’ should regime change happen.
Al Omar Oil Field in Deir ez-Zor, Syria
Gen. Lauderback said of Russia in the context of discussing US anti-ISIS operations at an Army conference in D.C. this week: “Economically, they wanted to seize oilfields, they wanted bids and contracts to develop Syria for infrastructure in order to stabilize Syria over the long term,” she said according to Al-Monitor news.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has reportedly been personally lobbying German Chancellor Angela Merkel over Syria reconstruction, especially as the two met outside Berlin last August, as the vital link solving or at least greatly reducing the migrant crisis which has become a political bombshell across Europe of late.
Russia says, simply enough, that if Syria is rebuilt then Syrians can go home— a process that’s already begun in a number of government-held major cities like Aleppo after their liberation from jihadist forces. But many European leaders, including in Germany, remain on the fence over European demands for a transition away from Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
Russia meanwhile appears to be arguing that neither the US nor Europe can do anything to make this happen as the long push for regime change has utterly failed and Assad is “here to stay” — as even the Washington Post reluctantly acknowledged recently.
via Bloomberg
According to a new Bloomberg report, Russia’s latest diplomatic efforts to woo Europe toward reconstruction include “efforts to organize a Syria summit in Turkey with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.” Vitaly Naumkin, a top Russian aide on Syria policy, told Bloomberg the Europeans shouldn’t follow the dictates of Washington on an issue that’s more directly impacting European shores.
Naumkin questioned, “I don’t see why Europe should always bow down to Washington,’’ and added “If Europe thinks we can get rid of Assad and some moderate opposition forces will come to power, they’re living in fantasy land. Radicals will take over that will slit people’s throats.’’
Bloomberg noted that “the bill for postwar reconstruction is estimated at $250 billion by the United Nations, and Western powers are rejecting Russian appeals to chip in.”
“Why don’t you want to help people returning to Syria, even in government-held areas?’’ Naumkin questioned further in the Bloomberg interview.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has recently said Germany will pitch in for Syria post-war reconstruction only if there’s a political transition away from Assad that will include free elections. France has also indicated it won’t engage in reconstruction talks or attend the proposed summit in Turkey without similar guarantees.
However, Naumkin pointed out something that’s been demonstrated time and again in Syria: that “there are no alternative figures’’ to Assad, who would win any election even if held tomorrow.
