Will China's banks have another crisis ? Remember at one time NPL (non performing loans) were 30%

Currently NPLs are 1.7 %. Some analysts think this will move to over 7% in the next year. If housing gets into trouble the number could be 13%. Bankers are thinking loan growth is too high. Loans may not get repaid and capital will be eroded and need a capital injection. New loans doubled in the last year as China loosened credit... unsustainable model.

Goldman Sachs trading below 50 day MA & Intel preannouncement of $1 billion shortfall in sales ... is this forecasting a slower economy / market ?

TESTING SUPPORT .... wait until 3:15 EST to see what the program traders do.

up 3% overnight ! Only people happy are the bears and my wife & others with POT (Potash Corp, not weed)

Hindenburg Omen ? Should you be "dancing close to the doors". Crappy housing data just released. Just wait until you see the crappy weekly jobs data and the big jobs data on the firdt Fri of each month! No jobs = bad housing data = no consumer spending = lower earnings = lower stock prices = happy bears

Wall Street has been whispering for a few weeks about the "Hindenburg Omen." Technical indicator that is supposed to signal an upcoming stock market crash.

The creator of this indicator recently said he is "dancing close to the door", ie. when the party is over, you want to be near the exit!

I have been bearish for a couple of months... S&P 500 target of 950... I'm now in good company. BofA/Merrill's market technical guru agrees !

BofA-Merrill's Mary Ann Bartels thinks the equity market has begun a correction that could last into October. "Since early August, the VIM (volume intensity model) shows rising distribution and falling accumulation. This suggests that sellers are stepping into the market."

And if the S&P 500 were to break 1010, she says, a deeper correction would become a bigger risk, with 950 and even 878 coming into view.

Earlier in the month she wrote that a head and shoulders pattern may be forming in the S&P with “a left shoulder at the January high, the head at the April high, and the right shoulder developing over the summer/fall.”

Bulls run for cover

Last week, the S&P 500 dropped more than 3% and the bulls scattered. In this week's survey, bullish sentiment declined 12% for its largest weekly decline since the flash crash.

not a good technical sign... Mr Market gave up the big gains before the close. 1090 is short term resistance.

S&P 500 charts... trying to break out above the 50 week MA. 1140 is resistance (light blue fan line) 1075 support (dark blue fan line)

Will the 50 week M.A. on the S&P 500 hold ? 1100 ?

What looks like a duck, quacks like a duck ? ....... a duck ! What will the Fed do today ?

So what looks like a economic slow down, quacks like an economic slow down ?   ..... an economic slow down !

The world has been looking to China as the engine of growth to drive economies around the world and keep the stock markets up. Well today China's latest trade surplus for July was announced. China's trade deficit for July ($28.7 billion) increased by 40% from June ($20 billion). This increase was due to a very large decrease in imports swamping a smaller decrease in exports. Appears that economic activity in China, is slowing.


As said before, after earnings season, the market will start to concentrate on economic news again.

The Federal Open Markets Committee, the FOMC will make their much anticipated announcement at 2:15 p.m. ET. Will the Fed announce today that it’s completely exhausted its effective policy tools ?

The FOMC will  leave the fed funds rate in this zero to 0.25% band. This has been the range for more than a year.  What is the Fed’s going to do next to stop the economy from decelerating, or rolling over ?
There is not much more for them to do. Maybe the Fedwill take the maturing assets on its balance sheet, and redeploying the money it gets back into the bond market. This is the prayer that has been keeping the market strong. If the Fed activates this program, it would be a neutral move at best. What is needed is job growth and consumer spending. Fed liquidity is not the problem.

got my ass kicked in July. Performance is down from 50% to 25% year over year. Can you say too many short positions !