Asia

Whether it was the previously discussed unexpectedly bullish JPM report (which calculated that a mere $6bn in net capital inflows has pushed the crypto market cap to $330 billion), or just the latest unexplained burst of buying out of Asia with another weekend surge in volumes out of Japan and Korea, but last week's bitcoin mini meltdown and bear market are now long forgotten, and overnight the world's most popular cryptocurrency has soared again, up $750, or 7%, in the past 24 hours, last trading at a new all time high of $11,795, just $200 away from $12,000.

So to summarize - the former national security chief agrees to testify against the sitting president and The Dow drops 40pts...

China stocks were mixed with CHINEXT surging overnight but CSI300 ending at the lows (worst week in 2017)

Authored by Steven Vannelli via Knowledge Leaders Capital blog,

In a US Dollar bull market with interest rates at zero, cash is rightfully dismissed as a non-asset class. But, when the US Dollar is in a bear cycle, things change, irrespective of what US interest rates are.

There are a handful of indicators we use to identify US Dollar bull and bear cycles.

Markets were thrown for a loop in the past 24 hours, with the Dow first soaring nearly 400 points on Thursday on expectations that tax reform was a done deal, when drama emerged just after the close when the Senate tax bill came this close to falling apart when the proposed "Trigger" was ruled as invalid, pushing a Thursday tax vote to this morning, and as of this moment the bill appears in limbo with the GOP scrambling to find ways to appease the sudden loud opposition among budget hawks. UBS economist Paul Donovan summarized it best this morning:

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

With its focus on Central Asia and Eastern Europe, the Belt and Road Initiative can be seen as fulfilling a strategy of challenging the West that can be traced back to Mao...