ECB

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, famous for his imbibition capacity and uttering -not necessarily in that order- the legendary words “when it becomes serious, you have to lie”, presented his State of the Union today. Which is of pretty much limited interest because, as Yanis Varoufakis’ book ‘Adults in the Room’ once again confirmed, Juncker is nothing but ventriloquist Angela Merkel’s sock puppet.

In a new report that may come as music to the ears of Mario Draghi, who has been valiantly hoping to show the European economy recovering while keeping the EURUSD below the "red line" of 1.20, BofA FX strategist Athanasios Vamvakidis is out with a new note today urging currency traders to "stop fighting the central banks", in other words stop selling the USD and buying the EUR, and recommends shorting the EURUSD to 1.15 with a 1.21 stop loss. 

The global risk-off mood accelerated overnight on Trump "stability concerns", coupled with fallout from the Spain terrorist attack and lingering North Korea tensions, even if the VIX is off its latest highs, trading just above 15. Investors fled into German and U.S. Treasury bonds and bought gold for the third day in a row, as the appeal of such top-notch assets grew further due to a deadly attack that killed at least 13 people in Barcelona.

On one hand, credit investors have never had it better with IG credit spread at record tights and junk bond yields sliding to 3 year lows

On the other, and this is linked to the above, they have never been more nervous, and as the latest Bank of America credit investor survey shows, more worried about the Fed in general, and "Quantitative Failure" in particular.

But why, if as so many claim, the Fed has nothing to do with the the return of risk assets? Ignore that, it's rhetorical.

Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com, 

ECB shuts down Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza.

When banks fail and regulators decide to liquidate them, it happens on Friday evening so that there is a weekend to clean up the mess. And this is what happened in Italy – with two banks!

It’s over for the two banks that have been prominent zombies in the Italian banking crisis: Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, in northeastern Italy.