Now that the world’s central banking cartel is taking a long-overdue pause from printing money and handing it to the wealthy elite, the collection of asset price bubbles nested within the Everything Bubble are starting to burst.

The cartel (especially the ECB and the Fed) is hoping it can gently deflate these bubbles it created, but that’s a fantasy. Bubbles always burst badly; it’s their nature to do so. Economic suffering and misery always accompany their termination. Read More.

In 1897, Virginia O’Hanlon asked her father if Santa Claus was real. He said she should ask The Sun, a prominent New York City newspaper of the day.

Back then there was no fake news apparently, so if the Sun put it in print that there was a Santa Claus, there must be a Santa Claus. Read More.

Many of us have been there. Hopefully for most of us, not for a very long time. It’s that moment when a young lad realizes that he may have just picked a fight with the wrong guy. It usually doesn’t take very long for the brain to ascertain that an opponent is not only willing to go there, but seems quite at ease in doing so. There is nothing worse than fighting a guy that knows how to fight. That’s the moment. The moment when you realize that even if you figure out how to get by, you’re probably going to get hurt. Read More.

The credit markets are facing excesses as investors chase yield, Apollo Global Management LLC co-founder Leon Black said.

“The credit markets, unlike the equity markets, have gone to bubble status,” Black said Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference. “The amount of covenant-less debt is more than 2007. You have a thirst for yield that exists on a global basis. So there is true excess.” Read More.

By most measures, the U.S. economy is performing okay. GDP growth is still near 3.5%. Unemployment is below 4%. Inflation is up a bit but still historically low.

Yes, the data has flaws. There’s plenty of regional variation. Your mileage may vary. But conditions could be a lot worse. Read More.

The U.S. Dollar could soon fall as much as 30% in a sell-off that could leave it looking like the bombed out Turkish Lira, according to the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world.

The U.S. economy is a ticking time bomb with a detonator set for about 2 years time, according to Ray Dalio, the chairman and founder of Bridgewater. Read More.

Parts of the U.S. bond market are seeing short-dated yields push above their long-dated peers, a “warning sign” for the stock market as Wall Street’s economic expectations for 2019 deteriorate.

That’s what Oliver Jones, an analyst for Capital Economics, said in a recent note, as investors pay newfound attention to the yield curve, the spread between short-dated and long-dated yields. Jones and others are worried that if this gap continues to narrow, more losses will follow for the S&P 500 SPX, -2.33% which has already been retreating from its October highs. Read More.

Morgan Stanley is warning investors to be careful when picking stocks next year because paying too much for over-hyped growth names could be disastrous.

Mike Wilson, chief U.S. equity strategist at the firm, sees an “earnings recession” at some point in 2019, predicting “two quarters of negative year-over-year growth.” Read More.

Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital, says the U.S. Treasury yield curve inversion on short end maturities are signaling that the “economy is poised to weaken.”

Gundlach, known on Wall Street as the Bond King, said the Treasury yield curve from two- to five-year maturities is suggesting “total bond market disbelief in the Federal Reserve’s prior plans to raise rates through 2019.” Read More.

Some of Wall Street’s top economists think it is still unlikely that both the U.S. and China find a permanent compromise despite the cease-fire.

Wall Street traders may be exuberant Monday over the decision to pause the trade war between the U.S. and China, but economists across the marketplace aren’t convinced the delay will lead to a permanent solution. Read More.

Having shrugged off a collapsing Put-Call ratio as anything but a buying opportunity, and after “quadrupling-down” on his bullish take for risk assets – one which has so far failed to materialize and even following today’s latest short squeeze, the S&P remains flat on the year – JPMorgan’s quant MD Marko Kolanovic just came clean about some of the real risks in markets. Read More.

Prominent short seller Jim Chanos says he’s concerned about the fragility of the stock market in response to increases in interest rates. “One of the things that worries me is just how fragile we seem to be to small rises in interest rates,” Chanos told CNBC’s Sarah Eisen. Read More.

The venerable Bank for International Settlements in Basel is the lair of the central banking fraternity, and the high priest of orthodoxy.

The pillars of the global financial system are fundamentally unstable and could lead to a frightening chain-reaction in the next crisis, the world’s top watchdog has warned. Read More.

The US economic cycle is six months from becoming the longest on record, which has led investors to question when it may end.

Nomura has compiled a list of 19 financial metrics which “nearly all suggest we are closer to the end of a cycle”. However, while US economic growth will slow next year, the analysts said the current expansion should still have further to run. Read More.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell readied the sleigh for a Santa rally in the markets with his dovish comments Wednesday. But a trade deal out of Friday’s dinner meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jingping is needed to keep up the momentum.

Unfortunately, some investors don’t see an agreement on the menu at that Buenos Aires meeting. Read More.

The Federal Reserve issued a cautionary note Wednesday about risks to financial stability, saying trade tensions, geopolitical uncertainty and a buildup in corporate debt among firms with weak balance sheets pose strong threats.

In a lengthy report on the banking system and corporate and business debt, the Fed warned of “generally elevated” asset prices that “appear high relative to their historical ranges.” Read More.