Following his first interview since being confirmed yesterday with the WSJ, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke to CNBC's Becky Quick and repeated some of the key points he made yesterday, among which his hope to get tax reform done by the August Congress recess, however he again confirmed that there are too many moving pieces at this point saying it is "too early to give details" of the Trump tax plan.
America's Midwest farmers can't seem to catch a break. First, an epic collapse of grain prices over the last couple of years have threatened to wipe out family farmers (see "Midwest Farm Bubble Continues Collapse As Farm Incomes Expected To Crash In 2017") and now, thanks to the pending NAFTA showdown threatened by President Trump, Mexico, the single largest importer of U.S.-grown corn, has announced plans to find alternative grain sources in South America. Per Bloomberg:
After several months of slowing price growth across China's bubbly housing market, if mostly in the lower-tiered cities, last month we reported that China's National Bureau of Statistics confirmed that the latest Chinese housing bubble has finally popped, after housing prices across the 70 cities tracked by the NBS were up 12.7% Y/Y, below the 12.9% annual growth rate in November. This was the first deceleration in year-over-year housing price growth after 19 months of continued acceleration.
The cancerous virus of freedom-destroying worldwide cash-bans - in the name of fighting terrorism - has reached Taiwan this week. With the aim of 'preventing money-laundering', Taiwan may ban cash purchases of properties and luxury goods, Taipei-based Economic Daily News reports, citing unidentified official at Ministry of Justice.
As we previously noted, the War on Cash is not merely continuing, it is intensifying.
'Twas the eve of President's Day and nothing was stirring (in Europe, China, or US markets) except that is, a wild algo in the LME copper pits...
Late Monday evening in London, with all but a few die-hard traders in China were asleep, the European workday was ending and Americans had a public holiday, 'Franken-copper' was born.