Overnight the Nikkei dropped another 2%, and both DAX and Footsie opened markedly lower as fear dominates financial markets against the backdrop of mounting credit market problems and anticipation of a slowdown in global economic growth.

Professional system trader Art Collins shares his daily biases in the index, bonds and currency futures markets for August 16.

It appears that no Federal Reserve Chairman is able to escape the first year curse. Although we are a few months beyond the first year mark of Ben Bernanke’s term, the current credit crunch has been slowly gnawing at the economy since the beginning of the year.

Why should I pay such a high commission? What if prices don’t come back up?

The Chinese yuan pulled back significantly against the US dollar, while making further ground against the euro and British pound as markets in Asia were hammered following losses in major US markets the day before.

Big moves in the US stock markets are driving major losses in carry trades.

Inflation growth in the Euro-zone is expected to slow during the month of July, with CPI estimated to have fallen 0.2 percent from the month prior, while the annualized rate is expected to hold steady at 1.8 percent.

The US Dollar rallied for the fourth trading day in five, as a continued Dow Jones Industrial Average rout led to a similar unwind of carry trade positioning.

Currency technical analyst Jamie Saettele analyzes the Australian dollar against the Canadian dollar, Japanese yen, and New Zealand dollar.

A test of 1.3445 looks inevitable as price is below 1.3500 now.