NC Renegades

If China had hoped it would root out intervention by eliminating Citadel’s rigging algos, and unleash a buying spree it was wrong: the Shanghai Composite opened negative, and never managed to cross into the green, despite the usual last hour push higher, ending down -1.1% and down for 6 of the past 7 days.

Worse, the high-beta Chinext tumbled 8% from Friday’s late day highs upon opening. Surprisingly, this happened even as China’s final Caixin/Markit manufacturing PMI tumbled to 47.8, the lowest since July 2013 as reported previously, a collapse which normally would have been very bullish for stocks as it guarantees even more PBOC intervention. The trouble is that with the PBOC losing the market’s faith, not to mention control, bad economic news are becoming even worse news for stocks.

Adding commodity insult to stock injury, earlier today copper plunged to a fresh 6 year low, and like crude, is back in its second bear market of the past year.

…

The real action, however, was not in Asia but in Europe, and specifically Greece, where the stock market finally reopened after a 1+ month “capital control” hiatus. Granted, numerous conditions still remained, such as no short selling, and extensive limitations to just what could be sold, but despite the attempt to micro manage the reopening, the result was not pretty, with stocks crashing 23% at the open and staging barely a rebound trading -17% as of this moment, even as banks promptly traded down to the -30% limit as the realization that an equity-eviscerating recapitalization (or bail-in) is now inevitable.

Worse, just as the Greek stock market reopened, the Greek Markit data and at 30.2, down from 46.9 the month before, the best reaction anyone could muster to this complete shutdown in the Greek economy was laughter. The chart below hardly needs commentary…

More…

Have you noticed that there is a tremendous amount of Internet buzz about the month of September 2015?  Never before have I seen so much speculation about what would happen in one particular month.  Some people believe that we will see an economic collapse next month, others believe that there will be some sort of historic natural disaster, and others are convinced that the judgment of God is coming.  So right now, large numbers of Americans are stocking up on emergency food and supplies like crazy.  Personally, I have never been more concerned about any period of time as I am about the last six months of 2015.  Several weeks ago, I expressed my belief that chaos will begin once the summer ends.  These are the last days of “normal life” in America, and just about everything that we currently take for granted is about to be shaken.

A lot of people that I know have been storing up food and supplies like never before, but I didn’t realize how widespread this phenomenon was until I came across the following Natural News report…

More…

Being concealed carriers, this is an important video to dissect and ask the question; based on the information gathered in the video, would you have taken that shot? At the very least, we can use these videos for educational purposes because it illustrates a real-life situation.

Let’s take a look at a few things that we can observe in the video.

More…

h/t Glen Tate

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico — An unknown explosive device was set off in a mailbox near Calvary Baptist Church and another in a trash bin at Holy Cross Catholic Church. No injuries were reported.

From Las Cruces Sun-News: “It was a real bomb, I saw all the parts,” said Cavalry Baptist member Dennis Llewellyn, who said he was outside the church when the explosive went off. Llewellyn said he was a former special forces member with the Marines and recognized the bomb parts that included an Everready battery. He and fellow church member Mike Stewart kept those churchgoers arriving for the 8:30 a.m. service from going into the building during the five to 10 minutes it took for police to arrive. Stewart was the one to notice the debris and damaged mailbox, the two men said.

“Right now, there’s just a lot of paper shreds,” said Las Cruces police spokesperson Sgt. Robert Gutierrez. “We’re thinking someone put a lot of fireworks together.”

More…

One of the few silver linings surrounding the hard landing Chinese economy in recent weeks has been the surprising strength of the Baltic Dry Index: even as Chinese commodity demand has cratered in 2015, this “index” has more than doubled in the past few months from all time lows, and at last check was hovering just over 1,100.

Many were wondering how it was possible that with accelerating deterioration across all Chinese asset classes, not to mention the bursting of various asset bubbles, could global shippers demand increasingly higher freight rates, an indication of either a tight transportation market or a jump in commodity demand, neither of which seemed credible.

We may have the answer.

More…

More than 14 million devices are already running Microsoft’s Windows 10 after its global launch on Wednesday, but it’s unclear how many of their users read the company’s Privacy Policy and Service Agreement before downloading. Tucked away in the 45 pages’ worth of terms and conditions (effective August 1) is a substantial power grab: The company is collecting data on much of what you do while using its new software.

From the moment an account is created, Microsoft begins watching. The company saves customers’ basic information—name, contact details, passwords, demographic data and credit card specifics —but it also digs a bit deeper.

Other information Microsoft saves includes Bing search queries and conversations with the new digital personal assistant Cortana; contents of private communications such as email; websites and apps visited (including features accessed and length of time used); and contents of private folders. Furthermore, “your typed and handwritten words are collected,” the Privacy Statement says, which many online observers liken to a keylogger. Microsoft says they collect the information “to provide you a personalized user dictionary, help you type and write on your device with better character recognition, and provide you with text suggestions as you type or write.”

More…