It's an ol' fashioned buyers' strike" according to CNBC's Bob Pisani.

But it's the worst start to December since at least 1950, Bob?!

 

 

Most worryingly for the asset-gatherers and commission-takers, there is no capitulation... it's death by a million fleshwounds...

Death by a million hedge fund liquidations...

 

China opened ugly overnight but a miracle bid appears to rescue markets into lunch...

 

Europe was ugly...

 

And US Futures show the real action today... a brief buying panic from the US open to EU close and then the liquidations began in size...

 

On the cash side, Trannies were the least shitty shirt in the laundry pile with Dow, S&P, Small Caps, and Nasdaq all glued together...

 

Nasdaq joined the rest of the US equity markets in the red for 2018...

 

Some Context:

• Dow -12.7% from highs (correction)

• S&P -13.7% from highs (correction)

• Nasdaq Composite -17.3% from highs (correction)

• Dow Transports -19.4% from highs (correction)

• Russell 2000 -20.6% from highs (bear market)

S&P's lowest close since October 2017...taking out the intraday lows from February...

 

Banks were battered again...down 25% from their highs

 

But Goldman is leading the charge lower after 1MDB comes back to bite... (now back below Trump election levels) Goldman is down 40% from highs

 

FANG Stocks were slapped back to 4-week lows...down 27% from the highs... (AAPL is down 30% from its highs)

 

VIX term structure remains dramatically inverted and above 25 today...

 

Credit markets and equity protection blew higher today...

 

Treasury yields tumbled on the day, down around 3-4bps across the curve...

 

And if Equity cyclicals are right, bond yields have a long way to fall...

 

The front-end of the yield curve remains inverted and 2Y TSY-3M Libor is the most inverted since Trump's election...

 

And the eurodollar curves are priced for uber-dovishness...

 

And the Treasury Bill curve has got significantly perturbed around the possible government shutdown...

 

The Dollar Index slipped lower  all day extending Friday's losses...

 

Cryptocurrencies soared on the day - as we near the anniversary of Bitcoin's peak one year ago...

 

With a weaker dollar and dovishness all around, PMs rallied as crude and copper crumbled...

 

WTI traded back below $50...and settled below $50 for the first time since Oct 2017.

 

Finally, we note that across asset-classes: The Dow, Gold, and The Long Bond are down around 4% year-to-date while the USD Index is up around 4% year-to-date...

 

And for those hoping for a dovish Jay Powell on Wednesday to lift stocks into year-end, be careful what you wish for - Eurodollar markets are already priced for max dovishness and stocks are trading with a notable premium over that...

 

Sell the news? Looks like they already are as the world's largest stock index - the $23 trillion market cap NYSE Copmposite - has collapsed to its weakest since May 2017...

 

Q4 is not looking pretty...