Asia

In an overnight session dominated by the latest political developments out of the US where Hillary Clinton officially claimed the democratic nomination, the financial newsflow focused on China's trade data, where exports fell 4.1% from a year earlier, in line with expectations, but imports dropped 0.4% from a year earlier, the smallest decline since they turned negative in November 2014, likely reflecting higher commodities prices but really driven by "imports" from Hong Kong which rose to $2.48b, the highest since at least 1999; and a 243% y/y surge in dollar term, also a historical high.

US exports of goods and services may be decreasing, but one export that appears to be hanging in there is hazardous electronic waste.

According to a recent investigation conducted by the Seattle-based e-waste watchdog group Basel Action Network (BAN), much of the hazardous electronic waste discarded in America is not being recycled properly - and by not recycled properly he means dumped in a junkyard in southeast Asia.

Stock whisperer Yellen said all the right things yesterday, when she sounded more optimistic than pessimistic on the economy but while the economy is "strong" it is most likely not strong enough to weather a rate hike in the immediate future.

Back in mid-April, when Iran was desperate to start exporting the millions of barrels it was pumping each day out of the ground, it found it has an unexpected problem: not only did it not have enough spare tankers, but few if any shipping companies were willing to move the cargo.

There were two key reasons for this.

With the plunge in rate-hike odds and fears over Brexit, it appears the safety of global developed market bonds is sought after as Bloomberg's Developed World Bond yield slumps to just 62bps - a record low. Yields are moving opposite to what economist expected (and have been expecting since the fall of 2011 when Ben Bernanke broke the capital markets).

Record low global bond yields...