Asia

Another quarter, another disappointing delivery announcement from Tesla, which moments ago reported that for the fourth quarter and full year, had delivered 22,200 and 76,230 vehicles, well short of Wall Street estimates of 25,000 for the quarter and shy of the full year goal of 80,000. To mitigate the disappointment, Tesla explained that its "Q4 delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct." Which, of course, is how all other carmakers define their deliveries as well.

In the West Junk Information And Junk Judgment Prevail

Paul Craig Roberts

Update: sure enough, here comes Trump's twitter victory lap:

"@DanScavino: Ford to scrap Mexico plant, invest in Michigan due to Trump policies"https://t.co/137nUo03Gl

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

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Rumors of the Trumpflation rally's death have been greatly exagerated, and not only is the Dow 20,000 back on the radar, following a 124 point surge in Dow futures, bringing the "key psychological level" back within 100 points, but European stocks rose for a third day and entered a bull market, rising 20% from theor lows set last February, following strong Chinese manufacturing and services PMI data, both of which ended 2016 on robust notes well inside expansion territory.

Two weeks after a Tunisian man, Anis Amri, whose German asylum request had been rejected, rammed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market and was later shot dead by Italian police, the German state prosuector's office said on Monday that a Syrian migrant who arrived in Germany two years ago was arrested on suspicion of seeking money from the Islamic State, to drive truck bombs into crowds.