It’s Getting Grizzly Out There; Software Stocks Have Been Destroyed.

Stocks are falling this morning, after a solid jobs number and proclaimed 4.9% unemployment rate.

LinkedIn is suffering its worst decline ever, off by a retarded 37%. Big data enterprise company, Tableau Software, is off by a staggering 49% in early trade–taking with it the entire sector.

Check these losses out.

DATA -49%

CRM -9.5%

QLIK -14%

SPLK -16%

WDAY -10%

VEEV -5.2%

DWRE -8%

HUBS -7%

PANW -10%

FEYE -7%

CYBR -5%

The list is endless, really. I cannot recall a worse day for the software sector ever. Is it warranted? Yes. We’re in a bear market and apparently enterprise software is slowing, in an appreciable way. Thank heavens Fed’s Mester is out there, hiking rates, for the benefit of the American people.

The world’s largest steel producer is doing a capital raise, reminiscent of the banks in 2008, in the hole–dilutive, in order to reduce debt.

Shares are down 7% in Europe on the news.

Although demand in our core markets remained strong, prices deteriorated significantly during the year as a result of excess capacity in China,” Lakshmi Mittal said.

China, which makes half the world’s steel, exported a record 112 million tonnes last year, equivalent to total North American output, upsetting trade partners who argue it is dumping on world markets.

Steel prices have slid to 12-year lows and global steelmakers appear set for another year of pain even as steel prices start to stabilise due to production cuts.

EU ministers met last year to discuss Chinese overcapacity and the threat to EU industry, at the request of Britain where most of recent sector job cuts have taken place.

Along with the capital increase, the company said it was selling for 875 million euros ($979 million) its 35 percent stake in Spanish automotive steel specialist Gestamp Automacion to the majority shareholders, the Riberas family, ending a joint venture formed in 1998.

“This capital raise, combined with the sale of our minority shareholding in Gestamp, will accelerate the company’s debt reduction plans and enable us to reduce net debt to less than $12 billion,” Lakshmi Mittal said.

With the sale of Gestamp and the offering, debt will be reduced from $16 billion to just under $12.

Like morons, the oil companies of the world have kept producing crude, as the price plummeted into the ground. It isn’t stubbornness that causes men to do stupid things; it is insanity.

According to a new Wood Mackenzie report, the oil producing companies of the world responded to a draconian drop in the commodity they sell by reducing supply by 0.1%, or 100,000 barrels.

“Since the drop in oil prices last year there have been relatively few production shut-ins,” according to the report. The company, which tracks production and costs at more than 2,000 oilfields worldwide, estimates that another 3.4 million barrels a day of production are losing money at current prices, of about $35 a barrel. It cautioned against expecting further closures, because “many producers will continue to take the loss in the hope of a rebound in prices.”

Yet, inspite of all of the excess supply of crude supplies worldwide, 96.4 million barrels of crude are still produced on a daily basis. This is an industry well deserving of extreme punishment and long term hardship.

Citi is out with a super-duper bearshitting report, just in time for the weekend. With it, I am sure they intend to scare people and look incredibly well learned during cocktail parties over the coming weekend.

Led by Stubbs, a well pronounced bear, Citi is suggesting the collapse in oil will continue and the dollar will strengthen, creating a ‘negative feedback loop that is sure to astound and leave investors staggered with mammoth sized losses.

“It appears that four inter-linked phenomena are driving a negative feedback loop in the global economy and across financial markets,” the analysts write, citing the resilient U.S. dollar, lower commodities prices, weaker trade and capital flows, and declining emerging market growth.

“It seems reasonable to assume that another year of extreme moves in U.S. dollar (higher) and oil/commodity prices (lower) would likely continue to drive this negative feedback loop and make it very difficult for policy makers in emerging markets and developing markets to fight disinflationary forces and intercept downside risks,” the analysts add. “Corporate profits and equity markets would also likely suffer further downside risk in this scenario of Oilmageddon.”

“But, the collapse in oil/commodity prices and sharp fall in the pace of world trade means that these same economies will likely experience an aggregate current account deficit for the first time since 1998,” says Citi. “In turn, this is likely to put pressure on SWF and broader emerging market liquidity as governments and emerging market economies would need to ‘lean’ on reserves in order to maintain economic, political and social stability. This has clear feedback loops across emerging markets.”

Citi concludes: “We should all fear Oilmageddon,” Citi concludes. “Global recession, as we define it, would leave nowhere to hide in equities. Cash wins.”

GET ON THE ARK.

Clearly, David is drinking the LinkedIn koolaid, after the company announced a most horrendous earnings outlook. David cite a wide array of reasons to like LNKD, from its high net worth, professional demographic, to its expansion in dog eating China. Nevertheless, the stock will now join the ranks of YELP, TWTR and Z, of former social media darlings turned into drek.

Even after tonight’s 30% drop, LNKD is trading upwards of 7x sales and 35x earnings–putting in the same ballpark as FB–who is actually crushing numbers. If it were to fall in line with, let’s say the losers at TWTR, then the stock could drop by another 30% from where it’s trading in the after hours.

The good Dr. gives zero fucks about the PBOC’s efforts. He’s declaring insanity to be reigning inside the confines of the Chinese Central bank. What they’re doing, according to him, is unsustainable and will only lead to massive devaluation–to the tune of 10-15%.

Related: The Chinese government keeps tossing good money after bad, attempting to stabilize the Yuan, fending off capital outflows.

The central bank will say Sunday that the currency hoard fell by $118 billion to $3.2 trillion in January, according to economists’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey. That would exceed a record $108 billion decline in December, which brought last year’s total draw-down to more than half a trillion dollars and capped the first annual decrease in the reserves since 1992.

“China is facing a significant capital outflow problem,” said Krishna Memani, who helps oversee $217 billion as chief investment officer at Oppenheimer Funds Inc. in New York. “It’s an astounding reduction in their capital account position. This is an issue they’ve been aware of, and they have to find a way of managing it. The economy itself cannot turn this around.”

The NIKKEI is lower again this evening, down to the tune of 230 points or 1.37%. Mostly all other asian markets, with exception to the kangaroo lovers in Australia, are flat to up. Oil is edging higher, up 0.2%; but no one seems to care.

NASDAQ futures are down 9–because the specter of DATA and LNKD horrific earnings shortfalls are going to wreak a biblical-styled reckoning upon longs tomorrow.

Plus, let’s not forget that Fed’s Mester made a ridiculous speech this evening, craven with lunacy, proclaiming the Federal Reserve rate hikes shall commence, despite all of the hardship and pain being inflicted on an already bedraggled and worn investor class.

He’s all over the road on this one.

The dollar might stop going higher.

Commodities might start going up.

The Fed, may, in fact, be your friend, or at least not your arch enemy.

Fund managers need exposure to moronic plays like AA, which Cramer seems to love.

Oh, but don’t chase these stocks, unless of course you’re chasing AA, which he endorses.

Instead, buy the high growth stuff that is coming down now.

etc.

One of the more hawkish Fed heads just said the rate hikes will continue, while wringing her hands and bellowing out a witch-like, craven, laugh.

“While the actual path the fed funds rate follows will depend on the economic outlook, and thus, will be data dependent, my current view is that economic conditions will evolve in a way that will warrant rates moving up gradually over time to more normal levels,” Mester said, according to prepared remarks marks she was to deliver to a Market News International gathering in New York.

She acknowledged the decline in energy prices and net exports among other weakness in the economy. However, she also noted “solid labor market indicators, including strong payroll growth and healthy growth in real disposable income” that “suggest at underlying U.S. economic fundamentals remain sound.”

It’s all about those extra Target and Walmart jobs being added to the mix that’s making the Fed nervous about inflation.

“Until we see further evidence to the contrary, my expectation is that the U.S. economy will work through the latest episode of market turbulence and soft patch to regain its footing for moderate growth, even as the energy and manufacturing sectors remain challenged,” she added.

FML

That’s funny, since the idiots who trade the Fed rate hike probabilities have eliminated the chance of another hike this year.

Can you say ‘downside surprise’? The Fed doesn’t give a shit about your portfolios.

Mester says financial market volatility is ‘not a rationale for making a monetary policy decision’

He came, he saw and he conquered all of the fossil fuels. Under his tutelage, President Obama has overseen the destruction of the coal, natural gas and now oil industries. He refers to oil as “dirty fuels”, almost evil in the methods by which they heat our homes.

The real story here isn’t the fact that Obama wants a solar panel on every housing tenement in America; but the fact that he doesn’t want to let the housing tenement renter enjoy these lower  gasoline prices. He intends to tax everyone, with an outrageous $10 per barrel levy–which will fund more bridges to nowhere and 30 year highway jobs to union controlled contractors.

In the last year of his presidency, Obama has said the country must stop subsidizing the “dirty” fossil fuels of the past and focus on clean, renewable fuels that do not exacerbate climate change.

“By placing a fee on oil, the President’s plan creates a clear incentive for private sector innovation to reduce our reliance on oil and at the same time invests in clean energy technologies that will power our future,” the White House said in a statement.

The long-shot proposal for the oil fee, set to be announced in Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget plan on Tuesday, would provide nearly $20 billion a year to help expand transit systems across the country and more than $2 billion a year to support research and development of self-driving vehicles and other low-carbon technologies.

With approximately $900 billion in distressed oil and gas debt, this tax is equal to rubbing salt into the wounds of someone who was just fatally shot in the head.