Business

A problem has emerged for France's anti-immigrant, anti-Euro presidential frontrunner, Marine Le Pen, and it has little to do with being behind in the polls ahead of the 2017 presidential elections, far from it. It has, however, everything to do with something far simpler: money, as the National Front leader is suddenly struggling to raise the €20 million ($21 million) she needs to fund the French presidential and legislative campaigns in 2017 after the party’s Russian lender failed, the party treasurer said.

Less than a month ago we warned that the Chinese commodity bubble 2.0 was bursting as speculative volume had exploded relative to open interest and exchanges had begun (after unreal surges in prices) to crackdown on the speculation. The carnage continued and over the last few days has bloodbath'd even more as China warns that it will miss its growth targets.

Spot The Odd One Out...

In the first 84 days of the 2017 fiscal year (October 1, 2016 - December 23, 2016), the Obama administration has accepted 25,584 refugees into the United States, according to data provided by the State Department.  Per Breitbart, compared to the same period in FY2016, that represents an 86% increase year-over-year.  And while we were expecting a large increase in refugee admittances in 2017 (see "Hillbama Administration Plans To Admit At Least 110,000 Refugees In 2017"), the ~30% increase that Secretary John Kerry estimated back in September is looking like

Last week, in a largely "under the radar" event, one of China's wealthiest billionaires (if only on paper), Wu Ruilin, chairman of the Guangdong based telecom company Cosun Group, and whose personal fortune of 98.2 billion yuan ($14 billion) makes him wealthier than Baidu founder Robin Li who is ranked 8th on the Hurun Rich List 2016, shocked Chinese bond market watchers when he defaulted on a paltry 100 million yuan ($14 million) in bonds sold to retail investors through an Alibaba-backed online wealth management platform, citing "tight cash flow."

It appears the sugar-high from holiday celebrations is still running through president-elect Trump's veins as his tweets took an even more narcisistic tone on this oh-so-aptly-named 'Boxing Day' in America.

First Trump decided to take credit for the unprecedented short-squeeze in US stock markets - and the Christmas spending numbers...

The world was gloomy before I won - there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!