Asia today and charts today

The pre-Christmas slowdown is increasingly becoming apparent despite the S&P 500 bringing its tally of record closing highs this year to 50 (fourth highest total since the 1920s).

Certainly we have the second Greek Parliamentary Presidential vote and various US economic statistics including GDP but insufficient votes/a fairly good print seems pretty factored in.

Not too much of interest in Asia especially as Japan was closed for a public holiday.  I see that Hong Kong's largest IPO of the year Dalian Wanda is not having the greatest first day...

Otherwise I like this graphic via Reuters on the Chinese shadow banking market.  At first glance the top chart indicates other shadow system are larger...but these are in bigger economies.  Also note the lower portion of the chart and the wonderful 'other financial intermediaries' reclassification...

Staying with China I am also not surprised to see the People's Daily confirming that for the time being the country will not be selling US Treasuries. Too many exports to the US for the time being!  

Also no surprises that  China is proving a rouble swap facility to Russia (link here). 

Some other interesting charts/graphics...

Global M&A highest since the financial crisis.  Amazing what you can do with effectively zero interest rates! 

Fascinating UK politics graphic showing the current malaise...

And the potential perils of volatility trading nicely captured in this chart.  So far during 2014 it has been a friendly area for me...