Asia

Last week's bullish sentiment that sent the S&P not only to a new all time highs, but a burst of last-second buying pushed above 2,500 for the first time ever, has carried through to the new week, with European and Asian shares rallying across the board, US futures again the green, and world stocks hitting a new record high on Monday ahead of a historic Fed meeting in which the FOMC is expected to announce the start of the shrinkage of its balance sheet.

Following Treasury Secretary Mnuchin's threat that the US could impose economic sanctions on China if it does not implement the new sanctions regime against North Korea:

"If China doesn’t follow these sanctions, we will put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the US and international dollar system, and that’s quite meaningful."

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

For what seems like decades, other countries have been tiptoeing away from their dependence on the US dollar.

China, Russia, and India have cut deals in which they agree to accept each others’ currencies for bi-lateral trade while Europe, obviously, designed the euro to be a reserve asset and international medium of exchange.

These were challenges to the dollar’s dominance, but they weren’t mortal threats.

S&P futures are slightly lower (ES -0.1%) as traders paid little attention to the latest missile test by North Korea on Friday, with shares and other risk assets barely moving, gold lower and focus rapidly returning to when and where interest rates will go up. Most global market are mostly unfazed, and the Korean Kospi actually closed up 0.4%, by the latest geopolitical escalation after a North Korean ballistic missile flew far enough to put the U.S. territory of Guam in range. European stocks edged fractionally lower while Asian shares advanced.

Global stocks backed off from all time highs, and S&P futures are unchanged ahead of the much anticipated US CPI report, which is expected to break a streak of five consecutive misses, while eyeing disappointing overnight Chinese economic data which missed across the board. European stocks and Asian markets were also modestly in the red, with the relentless global rally to new daily record highs taking a breather amid some concerns China's economy is rolling over, which weighed on commodities including base metals, which in turned dragged down mining stocks.