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U.S. equity futures are little changed with the GOP Tax Plan now a done deal and no more daily "pricing in" of tax reform possible, as traders nerviously look to see if others will now be "selling the news", a preview of which we got yesterday when US equity indexes closed red across the board despite Trump's biggest legislative win to date, while bonds were spooked by the blowout in government debt needed to fund the giveaways.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Russia’s oil company Tatneft, one of the biggest in the country, operated in Crimea until very recently despite the risk of being blacklisted by the U.S., Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing Tatneft documents and a source close to the company.

As expected, The Bank of Japan left all of its various machinations of monetary policy unchanged with Kataoka the lone dissenter (preferring a more aggressive stance of yield curve control). The key line in the statement appears to be "inflation expectations have remained in a weakening phase," which is the enabling narrative of lower and moarer for longer.

Submitted by RanSquawk

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) will conclude its final policy meeting of 2017 at some point on Thursday. The BoJ is expected to leave its monetary policy settings unchanged as it has done for the entirety of 2017, which would see the Bank maintain its QQE with Yield Curve Control (YCC) and a 10-year yield target of around 0% and leave its benchmark interest rate at -0.10%.

As usual, there is no exact timing for the decision, and it could be announced any time after the start of the Tokyo lunch break at 0230GMT/2130ET/1030HKT.

Illinois is drowning under a mountain of debt, unpaid bills and underfunded pension liabilities and it's largest city, Chicago, is suffering from a staggering outbreak of violent crime not seen since gang wars engulfed major cities from LA to New York in the mid-90's.  Here is just a small taste of some of our posts on Illinois' challenges: