What started out so hopeful ended in tears and extended the worst December performance since 1931...

Quite a day for US equity futures markets...

Reminds us of this...

As despite all the talk out of DC, the market is starting to get extremely anxious that shutdown will happen...

And Xi offered no new stimulus measures in his much-anticipated speech last night...

European markets were ugly (despite hopeful bids that Italy agreed on its budget with EU)...

But today's real headline-grabber was in the energy complex where WTI crashed...once it broke below $50, there was no stopping it

To 15-month lows

The energy complex collapse sent HY credit risk soaring to new cycle wides

As Energy stocks and credit crashed...

Away from energy, the broad markets were also mixed as yet another dead cat bounce rip was sold...

S&P futures started optimistically but plunged back below yesterday's lows (at the Feb lows)

High yield bond prices plunged to their lowest since April 2016...

Treasury yields continued to tumble...

10Y Yields are back to the Maginot Line of 2.82%...

Inflation breakevens plunged to 15-month lows as crude crashed...

The Dollar did one of its now ubiquitous trend reversals again today - dumping overnight and then ramping from the European open...NOTE that the dollar took out the payrolls plunge low...

Cryptos extended gains today...

Gold and Silver extended gains as copper and crude crashed...

Copper hit 3-month lows...

Silver hovered around its 50/100 DMAs...

And for some context about the drop in oil - it seems that relative to the price of silver,

Bear in mind, as David Rosenberg notes,

"Oil prices have collapsed nearly 40% from the nearby highs. Never before has the Fed tightened policy into such a free-fall in crude. So why would it now? Look for the Fed to take a pass tomorrow. This is not about political pressure, but rather receding inflation expectations."

Finally, for those still holding out hope for The Fed to save the world tomorrow...

All this anticipation about the Fed reminds me of all the rejoicing when we got that first discount rate cut on August 17th, 2007. If memory serves me correctly, the market didn't bottom until March 9th, 2009.

— David Rosenberg (@EconguyRosie) December 18, 2018

Especially as the market's expectations for a hike, tomorrow have tumbled...