Intervention in the Overnight Futures Market Turns the Tide on Stocks' Wild Ride

“In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger, and is at best the object of pity... Worldly history appeals in its own cause to the dictum that the end justifies the means. The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


“These people honour me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
they follow rules of their own making.”

Mark 7:6-7


“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

Henri J.M. Nouwen

Stocks were swooning overnight. Early in the morning hours buying started turning the tide, with the SP 500 futures leading the way.

As we know from the past crises and statements, buying the SP 500 futures was the remedy recommended by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

But we did have a significant correction, and it may not be over. One day's bounce does not a bull market make.

The problem was that the underpinnings of the market were so thin that it  took very little to set the market spinning on a wild ride as volatility, long suppressed, began to revert to the mean.

Trump said he would love to 'shut the government down' if the Democrats do not give him what he wants on immigration, and that 'the world is laughing at the US.'   Yep, but maybe not for the reasons he thinks.   His act is getting tired.

The Dollar managed to get a little boost higher and hang on to it, but silver and especially gold were methodically sold. Gold was smacked into the close, but bounced back three dollars after the close.

The XIV inverse to volatility ETN, marketed to retail investors by Credit Suisse, was incinerated in the market drop, and is said to be in liquidation.  Other funds were suspending redemptions.

Nothing has really changed. Arrogance and a disregard for the proper treatment of risk has once again been reinforced.

I am afraid that this is just a taste things to come.

Have a pleasant evening.