Asia

While stocks have been limping higher since around 2am ET (following headlines on an imminent ICBM launch) they remain lower from Friday's close:

But precious metals the biggest gainers of post-North Korean "hydrogen bomb" testing safe haven flows.

Silver broke above resistance at early June highs to test $18 and the highest levels since April 25th.

But that was clearly not acceptable to someone:

Having started off with a sharp gap lower following Sunday's news of the latest, 6th nuclear test by North Korea, global stocks and US futures pared losses in the overnight session, despite reports of North Korean preparations for yet another missile launch, while the yen trimmed its risk-off gains even as gold kept its upside and the South Korean Kospi closing 1.2% lower, with traders asking whether "this time will be different:, or inversely, will today's market reaction will be a carbon copy of what happened last Monday, when stocks gapped sharply lower on North Korea mi

After President Trump condemned North Korea's "hostile and dangerous" actions this morning, hours after the rogue state's 6th nuclear test, and according to the Kim regime first test of a hydrogen bomb, the press wanted to know one thing: will the US attack North Korea? "We'll see," Trump responded, leaving church when a press pooler shouted a question about if he plans to attack North Korea.

Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

They say that most of the world’s real dangers arise not because of what people don’t know but because of what they do 'know' that just ain’t so.

As a case in point, consider three things about Korea that the bipartisan Washington establishment seems quite sure of but are far removed from reality:

Delusion 1: All options, including U.S. military force, are «on the table.»

With payrolls looming (our full preview is here), carbon-based traders around the globe are leery of putting on any major trades and so the overnight session has been rather dull, dominated by the now traditional overnight algo-mediated levitation, which means the VIX is lower and S&P futures are once again modest higher as European and Asian shares continue their ascent.