Asia

As we observed in yesterday morning's market wrap, while US traders took the day off for the MLK holiday, China was busy defending an accelerating selloff across its stock markets.

As traders get to the their desks this morning after a 3-day weekend, only to find a market bombarded by a barrage of overnight news from around the globe even as Theresa May is currently delivering her Brexit speech, (so far the most impotant thing she has said is that both houses of parliament will vote on Brexit, leaving a door open that Brexit may not happen at all), here courtesy of JPM's Adam Crisafulli is a recap of all the chaos that has taken place so far.

South Korea political crisis spilled over into the corporate sector overnight, when the country's special prosecutor on Monday sought a warrant to arrest the head of Samsung Group, the country's largest conglomerate, accusing him of paying multi-million dollar bribes to a friend of impeached President Park Geun-hye.

Samsung Electronics vice chairman Jay Y. Lee

The US may be closed, but nothing stands in the way of merger Monday, which today struck in Europe with the announcement that Italy's Ray-Ban maker, Luxottica, and France's lens company Essilor agreed to a €46 billion ($49 billion) merger to create a global eyewear giant with annual revenue of more than €15 billion.

The deal, one of Europe's largest cross-border tie-ups, brings together Luxottica, the world's top spectacles maker with brands such as Oakley and Ray-Ban, with Essilor, the world's leading manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses.

While US markets take the day off for MLK holiday, the rest of the trading world has been busy, perhaps nowhere more so than the sterling which continued its volatile session in advance of May's pre-hard Brexit speech, falling below $1.20 for the first time since October after the Sunday Times said May is ready to withdraw from tariff-free trade with the region in return for the ability to curb immigration and strike commercial deals with other countries.