Authored by William Engdahl,
Investigations by Italian authorities and others have found that NGOs funded by among others George Soros, are actively financing private ships to smuggle tens of thousands of illegal North African refugees into the EU via Southern Italy. The human trafficking is reportedly linked to ISIS smuggling networks. If confirmed by authorities, it could potentially open the NGOs to criminal charges .
S&P futures are little changed at 6am ET, trading at 2347.55 and paring an earlier 0.4 percent drop, on the back of the USDJPY ramp which for the second day in a row has emerged alongside the European open, just as the key 110 support level appears in danger, soothing concerns about the Fed's balance sheet reduction and "some" Fed officials warning that stocks have gotten expensive.
While today's market was certainly more exciting than many had expected, first surging on the blockbuster ADP report, then plunging in the biggest intraday drop in 14 months after "some" Fed members warned stock prices are "quite high", there is a chance that it will get even more exciting tomorrow, should either Trump or Xi utter a word "out of place" during the first summit between the two world leaders at Mar-A-Lago.
How should traders approach tomorrow's key risk event? Courtesy of Bloomberg's ex-FX trader Mark Cudmore, here are some thoughts.
European stocks rebounded after a downbeat start, aided by a return to the post-Euro open momentum ignition in the USDJPY while Asian stocks rose after China shares surged 1.5%, the most since August. For now S&P futures are fractionally in the red, although we expect them to turn progressively higher as US traders get to their desks to frontrun the now traditional "post open" ramp.
In his overnight FX note, SocGen's Kit Juckes explains why a certain foreboding feeling of political and economic nervousness abounds in market, which continue to ignore the near all-time highs in the S&P, and instead can't quite shake off the sense that something is wrong, starting with US car sales data which don't usually make big waves, but an underwhelming performance was enough to drive Treasury yields down again and concerns that the US economy is losing momentum have returned, putting a dampener on risk sentiment generally.