Back in November, The Pentagon claimed to have killed Mohammed Emwazi - better known by his stage name “Jihadi John” - in a drone strike near Raqqa.

Emwazi was infamous for his role in catapulting ISIS into the public’s collective consciousness. Clad in black and brandishing a Bowie knife, the Brit beheaded hostages dressed in bright orange jumpsuits in some of the first Islamic State propaganda videos to garner widespread Western media coverage.

At the cost to world peace, the Saudi government experiments with terror on its perceived Shia enemies. Dan Sanchez reports: The Saudis Go Full ISIS In Their US-Backed Takfiri War on the Shia Saudi Arabia has perpetrated a mass execution that puts ISIS’s beach beheadings to shame. Forty-seven heads rolled on Saturday. One of them belonged to Nimr al-Nimr, a revered Shi’ite cleric who had been sentenced to death for sermons in which he criticized the government (especially for its persecution of the country’s Shi’ite minority). His brother has been sentenced to be crucified.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

A Hong Kong lawmaker said Sunday he believes Chinese security officers kidnapped five publishing company employees who have gone missing in the city, possibly because of a planned book about the former love life of President Xi Jinping.

 

As described by Nanex LLC's Eric Scott Hunsader,

Retail stop orders await execution, typically at common price intervals (0.00, 0.25, 0.50) at the Wholesaler. Wholesalers know those price levels and can anticipate and exacerbate the downside movement to increase net profits.

How?

Wholesalers create a composite view of the Order Book (Bid/Offer at each Price Level) across all exchanges.

 

For the last week of December - typically a month when inventories are drawn down dramatically to avoid year-end tax-burdens - API reports a huge 5.6 million barrel inventory draw (massively bigger than expectations of a 488k build). It would appear, after 3 mixed weeks, that energy firms waited for the very last week to dump inventories into year-end (as seasonally occurs). Of course the transit of the first post-export-ban tanker may have also helped.