Asia

As US stocks push to record highs, trading volume is dwindling and broad market breadth is terrible...

With the Trumpflation euphoria easing back slightly overnight, leading to a modest paring in the USD index and US Treasury yields, Asian and European stocks rose, while US equity futures rebounded to just shy of new all time highs, as crude jumped on renewed optimism that OPEC will agree to cut output; Italian equities underperformed ahead of the Italian referendum; metals rebounded from last week’s losses as yields dropped and the dollar halted its longest winning streak versus the euro.

Foreign Policy in America’s Interest: Realism, Nationalism, and the Next President

November 15, 2016 | 8:00am to 1:30pm | George Washington University | Washington, DC

While China's president Xi was busy dancing on the grave of TPP and rolling out its own regional free-trade alternative during the APEC summit in Peru, Obama was just as busy defending his vanishing legacy to an international audience for the last time. He was even busier projecting his denial before the entire world. As AFP reports, after the APEC summit closed on Sunday, Obama insisted that the 12-nation trans-Pacific deal, a key part of his now failed "pivot" to Asia, was far from dead and those involved still wanted to move forward with the United States.

As we noted on Thursday, "it was ludicrous for Obama to leave China out of things. China is the second biggest economy in the world, third if you treat the EU as a block. Had China been in the deal all along, we may not have seen the ludicrous provision that allowed companies to sue governments. That provision was one of the key reasons the deal failed. With the election of Trump, TPP is officially dead. China, not the US, will be at the center of a new Asian trade pact."