The much anticipated Turkey Central Bank Decision is out and it is a stunner: TURKEY'S CENTRAL BANK RAISES OVERNIGHT LENDING RATE TO 12.00% - this is the key rate, and it was at 7.75% until now,

The topic of China's real estate bubble, its ghost cities, and its emerging middle class - is not a new one here but, as Bloomberg reports, the latest report from economist Gan Li shows China’s households are massively exposed to an oversupplied property market.

Now that EMs are fully in the public eye, Bank of America has updated its "most important external vulnerability indicators" table for emerging markets.

It would appear the fears of a global bank run are spreading. Bloomberg reports that 'My Bank' - one of Russia's top 200 lenders by assets - has introduced a complete ban on cash withdrawals until next week.

The stock is down about 5% in the after hours session as the market is less than happy with the quarter.

Today there were wild price swings in at least 11 stocks: symbols BKH, GEB, HAYN, UBSH, WSBC, FLIC, EFF, GABC, BBOX, SP and TPZ. Nasdaq canceled trades in these symbols citing the clearly erroneous transaction rule 11890(b). Yet these trades appear anything but erroneous.

The taper-driven rate-rise scare that stalled home-buyer confidence has been matched by the December numbers. New Home sales plunged 7.0% against expectations of only a 1.9% drop as total sales dropped to 414k.

The reality is that China has more than enough real problems (Trust Equals Gold being at the forefront) and certainly does not need to add imaginary, made up ones.

Amid calls to spread the wealth and for an end to violence, the Pope released his "peace" doves today. However, the callous claws of capitalism (in the form of a black crow) and the sullen shape of social unrest (in the form of a seagull) decided to send their own message.

As a prelude to the following dismal market update, Japan just posted the largest annual trade deficit ever (ever ever ever) at JPY 11.47 trillion...

Jon Stewart takes on the orgy of crony capitalists, vacuous celebrities and corrupt politicians that is the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Warren Buffet:“ If I owned J.P. Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon would be running it and he would be making more money than the directors are paying him.”

Seriously.

While the world of speculative capital is focused intently on the Twitter and Facebook fundamental valuations in the publicly-traded equity markets, as the WSJ illustrates, the real dot-com 2.0 bubble is occurring in the private markets

Despite a total of over $20+ billion in legal fees, the chairman and chief executive of JP Morgan will be receiving a pay raise.

Think it's bad in the US (which it is)? The high-beta momo-chasers are running for the hills from Europe's best-performers. European stocks are down 3.4% this week broadly - the worst week since June 2013 and 2nd worst week since May 2012C high-beta momo-chasers are running for the hills from Europe's best-performers. European stocks are down 3.4% this week broadly - the worst week since June 2013 and 2nd worst week since May 2012