Look at it this way — someday, you’ll have some great financial war stories to tell.

“The latter part of 2014 and the dawn of 2015 will probably represent one of those episodes in financial history when the fixed-income markets were gripped by a confluence of factors that is unlikely to be repeated over the next hundred years,” said Jefferies’s chief equity strategist, Sean Darby.

There’s fodder for your future tales of battles past this morning, as Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s assets-are-bubbly comments continue to rattle global markets, which have already been duly freaked out by plummeting global bonds. She’s hit us at a tough time.

While some shout, “Off with her head!”, over at IG, analyst David Madden says Yellen was probably just trying to ready investors for an eventual hike. “The Fed are fully aware that ultra-low interest rates have been a huge factor behind U.S. equities hitting all-time highs this year, and the last thing the U.S. central bank wants is a crash when rates start to rise,” he says.

Or maybe she and the rest of her Fed minions are as confused as the rest of us. That’s the theory from Ed Yardeni, chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research, who notes that Fed officials have been pretty silent since the last meeting. He says they’re probably struggling to work backups in bond yields and oil prices into their policy-making decisions.

Hang on until summer, he says, when the Fed will get less confused and less confusing.

Our Chart of the Day takes a closer look at Fedspeak and what it says about market tops. Darby, meanwhile, makes our Call of the Day, as he explains why it may be tough for equities markets to wriggle out of this bond-market mess. Concern is everywhere. Check out what Mohamed El-Erian had to say at a Vegas conference last night.

On the bad days, you can just go make up your own stock narrative., at least (h/t Big Picture’s Barry Ritholz).

Key market gauges

One day to jobs data, and its red ink all over the place. Futures for the Dow US:YMM5, S&P 500 US:ESM5 and Nasdaq US:NQM5 are in the red, though off some earlier lows. Asia ADOW, +0.33% got hit hard, following losses on Wall Street. Worst hit was the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, +2.06% , off 2.7%, and Morgan Stanley just cut China to equal weight from an overweight position it has held for nearly eight years. They made the same move on Russia. The dollar USDJPY, -0.01% is not going anywhere, as investors wait on jobs data on Friday. Oil CLM25, is perking up a little, while gold US:GCM5 is off. European stocks SXXP, -0.66% are looking pretty rough, with German factory orders disappointing and German bond yields even uglier today. Don’t forget that nail-biter election in the U.K. today, meaning watch the FTSE 100 UKX, -0.70% and pound GBPUSD, +0.02% . Morgan Stanley said $1.39 is possible for sterling.

The quote

”He thinks we should all pay more taxes, but he loves avoiding them.” — Hedge-fund manager Daniel Loeb takes aim at Warren Buffett at the Skybridge Alternatives Conference (SALT) over the investment legend’s criticism of hedge funds, activists and more. Ker-pow.

The economy

T-1 day to jobs data. Weekly jobless claims rose 3,000 to 265,000, still near 15-year lows. Consumer credit for March is due at 3 p.m. Eastern.

Earnings

Tesla‘s TSLA, +4.42% first-quarter loss wasn’t as bad as expected, and CEO Elon Musk spoke of “crazy off the hook” demand for batteries. Here’s an earnings-call recap. The man himself is busy testing rockets while shares are down about 5%, after a 2% bump last night.

Incidentally, Morgan Stanley says at the current rate of cash burn, it would take Tesla 3 quarters to exhaust its $1.5 billion of gross cash.

Zynga ZNGA, +0.95% reported early, surprising with its results on the upside and shares are up 5%. It’s also cutting 18% of its workforce. Among the others, there was disappointment from Green Mountain US:GMCR, down 12% and Whole Foods US:WFM is down by about that much.

Alibaba BABA, -1.20% BABA, -1.20% is up nearly 7% after profit and sales beat expectations. Yahoo US:YHOO, which still holds a large stake in Alibaba is up 5%. SeaWorld SEAS, -1.11% narrowed its loss as attendance is up. Molson Coors TAP, -2.13% , Priceline US:PCLN and SeaWorld SEAS, -1.11% are reporting ahead of the open. Nvidia NVDA, -2.20% NVDA, -2.20% comes after the close.

The buzz

Times are tough for Twitter TWTR, +2.03% . Is this the man who can turn it all around?

Lumber Liquidators LL, -3.88% shares have tumbled after news it’s pulled its Chinese-made laminates on safety concerns.

The McDonald’s MCD, -1.03% Hamburglar is back. And he’s a hot dad. Oh, and kale breakfast bowls, anyone?

Google GOOG, -2.37% will have to find another home for its glass utopia. It seems the city council liked LinkedIn‘s US:LNKD development plans for Mountain View’s North Bayshore district better.

Chesapeake Energy US:CHK was cut to underperform from hold at Jefferies, reflecting a “rapid price burn,” say analysts.

More fast food for the stock market. Chicken-wing chain Wingstop filed Wednesday for an IPO.

Citi C, -1.47% , Barclays BCS, -3.27% , J.P. Morgan JPM, -0.21% and Royal Bank of Scotland US:RBS are expected to settle forex probes for billions of dollars, possibly as soon as next week, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The call of the day

Jefferies strategist Sean Darby fears equities may not be able to shake off this latest bond-market bleed-out.

First, he says equities are long-duration assets priced off the long end of the bond market. “The reach for yield has been dominated by the performance of bonds, and in this respect there has been ‘overreach’ in some equity markets,” he notes. This isn’t a huge problem for China, Taiwan and Japan, but in the U.S. there is “little room for error,” he says.

Second, the lid has more or less been kept on equity volatility, because central-bank buying and falling inflation rates have caused huge yield compression. A lot of that year-over-year disinflation will start subsiding from June.

Last, a lack of inflationary pressures has meant investors have been happily pricing in almost no chance of inflation in the five years from now.

He’s watching high-yield bonds and says equities could see a sharper correction if spreads widen. “Since equity returns are strongly correlated to credit spreads, we continue to own VIX VIX, -2.38% since March 10, 2015,” he says. Jeffery Gundlach and others have been warning about junk-bond warnings lately.

The chart of the day

Chad Gassaway took a look at Fed references in the past, and finds they haven’t exactly marked the top in markets. That “irrational exuberance” speech by then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in late 1996? “The S&P 500 went on to rally another 106%, before a market top in 2000,” notes Gassaway in his Tumblr blog.

His chart shows how the S&P 500 SPX, -1.11% has gained, even in the face of a forward price/earnings ratio of more than 20 — the watermark where many say markets are overvalued.

Chad Gassaway

Of course, says Gassaway, no one is going to know we’re in a bubble until it pops. But valuations and Fedspeak aren’t accuate forecasting tools, even if that’s cold comfort for markets post-Yellen.

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30,000 a day. That’s how many people got displaced from their own country last year.

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