Business

Following the backing of Sen. John McCain on the GOP tax reform bill, markets have surged to new all time highs as tax-sensitive banks lead the way, with Bloomberg reporting that odds for the tax bill's passage may increase to "near-certainty" if the Senate can finish its version in the days ahead, citing Evercore ISI.  And speaking of banks, the KBW bank index is up over 1.3% to the highest since Oct. 2007, outpacing the S&P 500’s 0.7 percent gain.

Both WTI and RBOB prices are tumbling this morning after OPEC member agree to limit oil output through the end of 2018. While this is bullishly longer-than-expected (6-9mo was expected), OPEC members now rely on Russia to agree to these terms, and it appears the market is questioning that. Furthermore, despite US shale output at record highs, Saudi officials are shrugging off any impact.

After reaching its highest since March 2011 in October, Chicago Business Barometer dropped in November (but beat expectations) amid slowing New orders.

Chicago PMI dropped from 66.2 to 63.9, better than the 63.0 expectations...

Under the covers:

As OPEC is set to celebrate the extension of the cartel's oil production cut for another year in Vienna, Venezuela former-oil minister and the former head of the now defaulted state energy company PDVSA have no reasons to celebrate following their overnight arrests in Venezuela.

Taking a page out of the Saudi "anti-corruption" playbook, Reuters reports citing two sources that Venezuelan authorities detained former Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino and former state oil company PDVSA president Nelson Martinez overnight as a part of a broad anti-corruption probe.

With OPEC delegates sequestered in a Vienna conference room, as they negotiate the proposed 6-9 month production cut extension, at least one appears to be leaking the decision process to media outlets, because moments ago Bloomberg reported that OPEC ministers have agreed to extend their production cuts until the end of 2018 - agreeing with the Saudi-proposed 9 month extension - and discussions have now moved on to the mechanism that will be used to review the agreement in the middle of the year.