The signs have been with us for a while but it seems that all of the sudden this morning the world is beginning to wake up to the.

Apple Sales: Apple AAPL saw shares down as much as 8% in premarket trading as their CEO Tim Cook, announced that the company was poised to miss revenue estimates due to a slow down in sales in China.

Revenue was expected to be in the range of $89 to $93 billion and will instead fall to around $84 billion. The slow down in sales can be almost entirely attributed to lower sales in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Safe Havens Gain Momentum: The yen has been gradually gaining strength for the past 12 months and saw a “flash crash” in overnight trading in Asia. The yen fell in early morning trading in Asia from the 109 area to 105 per dollar.

4 yen may not seem like a lot in retrospect but it represents a 3.67% change in a matter of minutes and considering the billions of dollars that trade hands daily in the FX market this was a significant disruption for participants that make foreign currency contracts for payments and receipt of funds in different currencies every day.

The crash is being hailed as the latest sign of market volatility spreading globally and the strengthening of the yen along with the uptick in other “safe haven” assets like the yen, gold and bonds are seeing a brief resurgence.

Part of a Greater China Slowdown: The Apple sales slow down is being hailed as the bell weather for the slowdown in China. However I would like to think this is more just the American news media’s bell weather of the slowdown.

As many outlets have pointed out, GDP growth has been slowing to the 6% range and there has been a general credit slow down precipitated by a government induced credit pull back to reign in sloppy lending and clean up bank balance sheets. The pull back in credit has hit auto sales and manufacturing confidence in China.

Most important may be the effect all this will have on the country’s property market. Since mainlanders cannot invest in foreign companies or stocks, savings are funneled into real estate. The size of the flows are further exacerbated by the tendency for families to pool generational wealth and high savings rates due to the lack of a social safety net. Currently the real estate market is estimated to account for a third of GDP growth. As the market slows further, a deceleration of growth could soon ensue.

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