Markets are clearly rigged but the technical argument may be a touch too cynical even for the US!!

Buy backs are an issue too for sure.

But the monetary system doesn’t work right now, so Stealing QE was really only effective in its impact on Theft lowering rates below where they should be and boosting the value of assets over an above their true worth.

The whole thing is a manufactured (deliberately) scam. No wonder may honest fund managers have recently thrown the towel in.

When you say is all bollocks you just mean you don’t like it. End of the day the global economy is a human construct and is what it is at that moment in time.

People who bang on about manufacturing saving the UK are living in the dark ages, robots, computers mean that even if you do make stuff here it will never employ the same quantities as 40 years ago.

My 2 cents

The faliling oil price is a negative symptom of weak demand and over supply of oil. Many oil economies need an oil lrice of $60-70 to break even, as price fell below that they kept producing. Even Saudi whonporduce at 10 need a lriceof 60 (I recall) to meet govt spending based on their production volume. Now storage is full. Weak demand esp from China is a worrying sign that their economy could collapse, they are a big consumer now not just a producer. Spending on oil production and exploration is being cut back so that less jobs, tax revenues etc

As such investors are taking money off the table / out of the market – in fact they’ve been doing this for months

Being prepared for such a scenario was one of the major reasons the Tories favoured spending cuts to more government debt

China (along with low interest rates and money printing) got the global economy out of the last mess.
Now China is struggling (how badly, we don’t know), and the central banks have no other policy weapons other than negative interest rates (which could be on their way).

I also wonder if the sheer volume of share buybacks going on, being used to boost earnings per share rations will, in time, be considered massive fraud…

I’d agree. But in a zombie economy, fraud can be dressed up as meaningful economic growth.

Being prepared for such a scenario was one of the major reasons the Tories favoured spending cuts to more government debt

My lord you do like to shoe horn in some tory party press releases into your posts- still at least it was not done in a tabloid stye – though I think you only use that language to describe labour policy not the tory ones.

you’re right they are not ideologically wed to the idea of a small state they just wanted to prepare for this eventuality 😯

PS as you are so well read can we have a link to porve the #jambyfact…thought not 🙄

Autumn statement for starters

I can see why the overall crash in the price of oil would affect the markets but it seams now they are overly sensitive, almost as if they are being played, to the price of oil. The smallest drop in oil and it’s panic stations a small rise and all is good.