Ugly day in risk markets with Dow S&P500 and Nasdaq finishing at the lows.  Lets see how the next few days unfold.  Will the bulls be able to circle the wagons at the 50-day moving average (S&P 500: 1,540)?  

My prayers go out to the injured and deceased.  God bless them.  

Nichter, 35, who’s paying $1,500 a month on loans for degrees from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, is part of the most debt-laden generation to emerge from college. Two- thirds of student loans are held by people under the age of 40, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, blocking millions of them from taking advantage of the most affordablehousing market on record. The number of people in that age group who own homes fell by 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter from the third, the biggest drop in records dating to 1982.

“Student debt has a dramatic impact on the ability to buy a house, and to buy the dishwashers and the lawnmowers and all the other purchases that stem from that,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist of Mesirow Financial. “It has a ripple effect throughout the economy.” — Bloomberg

University of Sydney associate professor John Lee said it was a smart move from Taiwan and Japan that would increase pressure on China to set aside some of its territorial disputes and reach commercial resolutions to them.

“The fact that Taiwan has come to a commercial compromise without settling the sovereignty issue is precisely what the rest of the region and the US has been urging China to do,” he told The Australian. — The Australian

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has reported that North Korea now has some nuclear weapons small enough to be delivered by its ballistic missiles.

The DIA cautioned in a classified report last month that it has only “moderate confidence” in that finding, which also said that the reliability of North Korea’s missiles “will be low.” — Bloomberg

[Singapore] Gross domestic product shrank an annualized 1.4 percent in the three months ended March 31 from the previous quarter, when it climbed 3.3 percent, the Trade Ministry said today. The median of 10 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was for 1.7 percent expansion.

Inflation Quickening

A report last month showed prices climbed 4.9 percent in February from a year earlier, the fastest pace since June and more than double the 1.9 percent average in the past 20 years. Singapore’s inflation rate compares with a 2.1 percent pace for China and 2 percent for the U.S. — Bloomberg

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More cases of stagflation are popping, thanks to reckless central bank printing.  Brazilian economic data is cause for concern as well…this country too is being affected.  

• Brazil’s CPI this week was on the hot side, industrial production in the country has been downright ugly for almost two years, and retail sales disappointed today.  

“The anti-corruption action by Xi is creating unprecedented phenomena, including an absolute fall in high-end restaurant sales,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong, who previously worked for the European Central Bank. “It’s certainly a big factor dragging down short-term growth.” — Bloomberg

Markets keep racing higher despite global macro headwinds.  Given a new high, it’s not a bears market….more wait and see (few shorts) and invest a little capital to the upside.