China lowered the reserve requirements for its banks last week, a move tailored to boost risk taking via lending. The move has had the rather perverse effect of sending U.S. and European exchanges higher while Asian equities markets slid lower.

China is admonishing its high-flying investors, big and small, to lay off extreme borrowing or selling property to buy stocks.

U.S. equities probably executed the best strategy Thursday after a raft of U.S. data appeared yesterday and today. Do little or nothing stock traders seemed to say.