Twas right after nine

And all across the screens

Not a market was moving

Not even the grains

 
Things had just settled down
After yesterday’s rout
With visions of dollars
Floating about

 
Then on down the quote list
There arose such a sight
Had the S&P 500
Officially lost its fight

 
Down one percent yesterday
Not a heckuva lot
But down through its 50-day moving average
Without even a thought

 
Might this be a gift
I asked myself
An early sell signal
Wrapped by an elf

 
Yesterday commodities slid
Like a sleigh down a hill
But today at the bottom
They appear very still

 
Now over the last
Thirty-four days
Correlations have loosened
Gone separate ways

 
But more recently
As the markets dip
Commodities, currencies, stocks
Have become attached at the hip

 
Gold, silver, copper
Aussies and euros
All wrapped in one blanket
With frostbitten toes

 
The move is one-sided
Balanced by dollars
Shore up your capital
Button your collars

 
It smells of worry
Of investor concern
Like roasting your chestnuts
And then watching them burn

 
If stocks don’t recover

If they don’t climb out of the snow
Christmas this year
Could totally blow

 
With no wealth effect
Or stimulus to boot
We pray for Ben Bernanke
In a Santa Claus suit

 
On Raskin, On Fisher
On Plosser and Yellen
On Kocherlakota, On Duke
On Diamond and Evans

 
They may have disappointed
Earlier this week
But falling markets may beget action
From the FOMC

 
They better act fast
To stem all the fear
Because the financial naughty list
Is quite long this year

 
It is said the eurozone struggles
To rescue its members
Because they can’t agree
On coming together

 
But the problem is worse
Than a collective can fix
With Sovereigns selling CDSs on each other
And with insolvent banks in the mix

 
While “mass incidents”
In China Prevail
Its policymakers
Are chasing their tail

 
Officials seek growth and opportunity
Its people are demanding
But they’ll be lucky
If they avoid a hard landing

 
Emerging markets can see
That their growth is slowing
Without Europe and China
The tough has gotten going

 
Like unicorns and leprechauns
The ogre on the cliff
And like Greek austerity measures
Decoupling is a myth

 
And just when you thought
Things were looking scary
MF Global’s demise
Was just the canary

 
Consider all the
Off-balance sheet items
All the re-hypothecation and leverage
Among them

 
Tight-coupling be damned
And this may sound crude
But the global financial system
Is totally screwed

On the markets, this mess
Will take its toll
And many will be left
With a sock full of coal

 
The US economy
May avoid a pandemic
But chances are
This global financial mess is systemic

 
As politicians and voters
Fight to restore common sense
America may recover
Or it may go off the deep end

 
The Plunge Protection Team
May save markets, I know
But as of right now
Look out below

By John Ross Crooks @ BLACKSWAN, Editor of Commodities Essential

Have an excellent Christmas Everyone!