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ECB President Mario Draghi is now walking back QE.

This is not a surprise to our readers. I’ve been forecasting this exact development, (as well as the Euro's spike to 120) since August 2016 (by the way, the Euro was at 109 back then everyone thought it would soon reach parity with the $USD as it collapsed).

Still, why is Draghi doing this?

Because the bond market was in revolt, with yields beginning to rise. Rising yields= falling bonds prices. Falling bond prices over time= bear market in bonds. Bear market in bonds = SYSTEMIC reset.

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

Petrocurrencies are breaking away from their traditional tight link to oil prices, but all it would take for this link to return is for prices to fall bellow their current range. This seems to be the general consensus among bankers interviewed by Bloomberg’s Natasha Doff and Anna Andrianova.

While the ECB kept all of its three key rates unchanged as expected, and also kept the pace of QE at €60 billion until the end of the year, confirming the numerous trial balloons overthe past month, the ECB announced that it would cut the rate of QE in half, to €30 billion "from January 2018 until the end of September 2018" adding that this would extend "beyond, if necessary" and “until inflation path has sustainably adjusted.”

In the first sign that President Trump's favorite social network may be finally turning the corner, Twitter reported revenue, EBITDA and earnings all of which beat expectations, at revenues of $589.6MM (vs exp.$587.5MM), EBITDA of $207MM (vs exp.  $161MM) and non-GAAP EPS of $0.10, better than the $0.06 expected. Monthly active users rose by 4% to 330 million in the third quarter, which while below the 330.5mm expected was still a welcome development for investors who last quarter saw a decline in the company's MAU and punished the stock appropriately.

US equity futures and Asian shares are flat this morning with European shares treading water ahead of the ECB's policy meeting in which it’s expected to announce a tapering to its €60bn in monthly QE. On this busiest day of Q3 earnings season, companies set to report earnings include Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Intel, while we also get data on jobless claims and wholesale inventories.