Asia

"Triple Threat Thursday" is now a distant memory, with both the ECB and Comey testimony "non-events" for the market, although the UK general election was a shocker in which contrary to expectations, Theresa May lost her majority in Parliament, sending sterling tumbling overnight and prompting even more confusion about the UK's political fate and the future of Brexit. That however did not spook risk assets, and on Friday morning, European stocks gained with Asian stocks little changed, while S&P500 futures were set for new all time highs. Just like after Brexit, it was U.K.

Viruses, violent conflicts and a host of other regional calamities helped revive peoples’ desire to migrate permanently to another country between the years 2013 and 2016 as the number of potential migrants climbed to 710 million, according to a Gallup poll.

Paul Singer just became the latest investing luminary to warn that the unprecedented monetary stimulus adopted by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks in Europe and Asia has elevated market risks to their highest levels since before the great financial crisis.

“I am very concerned about where we are,” Singer said Wednesday at the Bloomberg Invest New York summit.

 

So far "Triple Threat Thursday" has been a dud. In the day with the greatest concentration of market-moving risk events so far in 2017, market action - at least for the time being - has been a whimper, with European stocks and US futures modestly higher ahead of the ECB’s rate decision and Comey's testimony (which has now been fully publicized, removing much of the risk), as the U.K. voting is underway. Asian stocks fell led by a decline in Japan as the yen first strengthened, only to tumble later in the session.

Summaryvia the Soren K. Group and Marketslant