Japan

Japan's economy grew by 1% sequentially, and 4% on an annualized basis in Q2, smashing expectations of a 2.5% print and well above the upward revised 1.5% in the first quarter; it was also the the highest quarterly growth since a 5% print in Q2 2015, Japan's Cabinet Office reported, and the 6th consecutive quarter of expansion for recently embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has plunged in the polls following a series of corruption scandals.

Following North Korea's threat on Wednesday to fire ballistic missiles over Japan toward Guam, it was only a matter of time before Japan - which overnight said it has the authority to shoot down any such projectile above its territory - took appropriate steps, and according to the Nikkei, the Japanese government is starting to deploy Patriot missile interceptors in its western regions ahead of a North Korean launch.

US futures are set for a sharply lower open (at least in recent market terms) following a steep decline in European stocks and a selloff in Asian shares, following yesterday's sharp escalation in the war of words between the U.S. and North Korea. In a broad risk-off move U.S. Treasuries rose, the VIX surged above 12 overnight, while German bund futures climbed to the highest level in six weeks.

One day after Kim Jong Un's regime balked at this weekend's UN sanctions, promising retaliation and threatening to attack the US with a nuclear weapon, Japan's government has released a new 500-page report in which it warns that the threat from North Korean nuclear weapons has reached a “new stage” and that Pyongyang’s weapons program had “advanced considerably,” to the point where it was possible that the regime had acquired the ability to miniaturize nuclear warheads.

Authored by EconomicPrism's MN Gordon, annotated by Acting-Man's Pater Tenebrarum,

Mathematical Certainties