Stock Market Today: S&P 500, Nasdaq futures dive as Buffett dumps Apple, yen soars

Taking the famous “abnormally good or abnormally bad conditions do not last forever” from Benjamin Graham, Bianco points out the MSCI World in mid-July was up 15% after rising 22% last year.

“Being aware that long-term, global stocks on average return slightly more than 7% per annum, it does sound like ‘abnormally good conditions,’ doesn’t it,” he said. “Markets had just been priced a bit too much for perfection.”

“From a market perspective, it remains a fine line between economic indicators that are weak enough to justify rate cuts, but at the same time do not weaken too much, thus pointing at a recession,” he added, also mentioning rising geopolitical tensions as well as seasonality. “We would not be surprised if markets were to remain choppy for the weeks to come, without however expecting a bear market.”

The major cryptocurrencies are sliding.

Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solona each were nursing double-digit percentage slides, showing again how leveraged they are to global financial conditions.

If bitcoin is “digital gold,” then analog gold is doing quite well, comparatively, with futures up by about 0.6%.

European markets are skidding as well in early action.

The U.K. FTSE 100, the French CAC 40 and the German DAX are each down between 2% and 2.3%.

The Euro Stoxx 50, down 2.5%, is now negative this year.

Asian stocks were clobbered, for the most part.

But the selling wasn’t limited to Japan: South Korea’s Kospi tumbled nearly 9%, and Taiwan’s Taiex fell 8%. The ASX All Ordinaries tumbled 3.8%.

The Shanghai Composite fell only 1.5% and the Hang Seng lost 2% in Hong Kong. Those markets it should be said are among the worst performers this year.

It’s ugly out there.

U.S. stock futures are getting bludgeoned in the early going on Monday, with the Nasdaq-100 contract down nearly 5%.

“We stay cautious on equities, expecting the phase of ‘bad is bad’ to arrive, where stocks weaken as bond yields fall,” said strategists at JPMorgan led by Mislav Matejka.

That comes amid a wave of bad news. First, there’s the U.S. economy, where fears of a recession are building after a surprisingly tepid July payrolls gain of 114,000 and another increase in the unemployment rate.

On top of that, investors who bet against the long-beleaguered Japanese yen are getting streamrolled after last week’s Bank of Japan interest-rate hike while the Fed stood still.

The news from arguably the greatest investor of all-time, Warren Buffett, wasn’t positive as Berkshire Hathaway built up its cash reserves to $277 billion and reduced its holding in Apple by nearly 50%.

There’s also geopolitical worries to consider, as Iran prepares to retaliate against Israel after the assassination of Hamas’s top political leader in Tehran.