Asia

Submitted by The Saker,

First, the bragging dummies

Having traded in a relatively narrow - for bitcoin - range of $16,500-$17,500 over the past week, the world's most popular cryptocurrency jumped to new all time highs following the latest (unexplained) burst of buying out of Asia, with another Saturday surge in volumes emerging out of Japan and Korea.

Bitcoin is now up over $1,200, or 7%, in the past 24 hours, last trading at a new all time high of $19,000 on the coinbase exchange.

U.S. equity index futures point to a higher open, having rebounded some 10 points off session lows with the VIX stuck on the edge between single and double digits, while European and Asian shares decline as investors assess central banks’ shift toward tighter monetary policy and concern over tax overhaul ahead of final plan. 

It has been a groggy end to what is still set to be a third week of gains for MSCI’s global stock index following more upbeat data and signs that central banks including the Federal Reserve will keep treading carefully with interest rate hikes.

Despite record bubble heights, hoards of futures shorts ready to pounce, funding ISIS, and being a "highly speculative asset," it appears the world's citizens are willing to place some assets in the safety of a decentralized, non-fiat asset.  

Bitcoin is surging once again as Asia opens, to new record highs at $17,661.

We said two days ago that it’s been a tough week for anybody who needs to heat their home or put gasoline in their cars in Britain. The litany of negative events and mishaps includes extremely low temperatures, the shutdown of the Forties pipeline due to a hairline crack and an explosion at one of the Europe’s biggest gas hubs in Austria, which further tightened UK supplies.

As we noted, the price of gas futures surged by the most in 8 years. The timing of the gas hub explosion, as we head into Winter, couldn’t have been worse either.