Asia

Authored by Federico Pieraccini of Strategic Culture

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), by lending out money using an alternative currency to the dollar, opens up huge spaces for investment and the strategic transformation of the region.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

Is the world's center of gravity shifting to the heart of the Indo-Pacific – a new pivot to Asia?

Once again weakness in the US carried through to Asia with stocks unable to hold any National-Team-inspired gains, but it was the contagion to commodities that was most notable (as a hike in exchange fees snuffed out a lot of speculative fervor)

• European equities have followed suit from their Asia-Pac counterparts to trade higher across the board
• Markets await Brexit headlines amid Barnier deadline
• Looking ahead, highlights include US weekly jobs and potential comments from ECB’s Draghi.

ASIA

For a second, it seemed that the broad risk-off wave that started in Asia, swept Europe and pressured US futures was here to stay. And then, the signal all algos had been waiting for emerged: Gartman just flip-flopped back to bearish.

From Gartman's latest letter:

A selloff which started in Asia, driven by renewed liquidation of Chinese and Hong Kong tech stocks and accelerated by weaker metal prices which pushed the Shanghai Composite below a key support and to 4 month lows...