Business

• European stocks plunge as Lunar New Year offers no cheer (Reuters)
• European Stocks Fall, Credit Weakens as Signs of Distress Abound (BBG)
• Management trouble at world's biggest hedge fund: Bridgewater succession plan in flux as heir Greg Jensen steps back (FT)
• U.S. athletes should consider not attending Olympics if fear Zika - officials (Reuters)
• Geithner Gets JPMorgan Credit Line to Invest With Warburg Pincus (BBG)
• Top Clinton Donor Wants a Law Against $1 Million Gifts Like His (BBG)

The biggest event of the weekend, if not the month, was China's FX reserve outflow update, which at $100BN was slightly better than the $120BN expected (it pushed China's reserves to the lowest in nearly 4 years) but it was in the "no man's land" between the BofA best case scenario ($37.5BN), and the GS worst case ($197BN).

Who Really Needs A Gold Standard?

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK FOR ORIGINAL)

Bloomberg News recently made an astounding proclamation in a news release, by nothing less than postulating a return to a gold standard. Let me repeat. Bloomberg, a part of the mainstream media propaganda machine which often bashes all things related to gold (including the gold standard), is now advocating a return to a gold standard.

Wow, did the dollar move down this week! It dropped more than it has in quite a while. It fell 1.3mg gold, or 0.1g silver.

Gold and silver bugs of course are excited, as they look at it as the prices of the metals going up $55 and 72 cents respectively. The collapse of what most think of as money—including especially said gold and silver bugs—is great fun and profitable. At least if you’re short the dollar.

With China offline for the next seven days as its celebrates its Lunar New Year, here are 7 bullets from Evercore ISI to get everyone up to speed on the latest developments in the world's most troubled "growth" economy.

Evercore ISI China Weekly Summary

No one can remember (and we can't think up) more than 7 bullets on anything.  Here, this week's top China 7.