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While US markets take the day off for MLK holiday, the rest of the trading world has been busy, perhaps nowhere more so than the sterling which continued its volatile session in advance of May's pre-hard Brexit speech, falling below $1.20 for the first time since October after the Sunday Times said May is ready to withdraw from tariff-free trade with the region in return for the ability to curb immigration and strike commercial deals with other countries.

Rumors of the Trumpflation rally's death have been greatly exagerated, and not only is the Dow 20,000 back on the radar, following a 124 point surge in Dow futures, bringing the "key psychological level" back within 100 points, but European stocks rose for a third day and entered a bull market, rising 20% from theor lows set last February, following strong Chinese manufacturing and services PMI data, both of which ended 2016 on robust notes well inside expansion territory.

While most of the world is enjoying it last day off from the 2017 holiday transition, with Asia's major markets closed for the New Year holiday, along with Britain and Switzerland in Europe and the US and Canada across the Atlantic, European stocks climbed to their highest levels in over a year on Monday after the Markit PMI survey showed manufacturing production in the Eurozone rose to the highest level since April 2011.

Most world markets have reopened following the holiday weekend, but trading volumes remain significantly muted. Asian and European shares advance modestly amid low volumes with U.K. and Ireland closed; S&P futures are little changed while the dollar rose and oil extended its longest winning streak in four months.

Quad-witching Friday has arrived, which means that alongside thin, pre-holiday liquidity and a jumpy market, we expect to see sharp, volatile moves for the rest of the day, the first of which was just noted in Europe, where stocks moved from session lows to highs in the span of minutes, in the process sending the Euro Stoxx 50 index 0.8% higher and turning it positive on the year as it reached its highest level since December 2015. The broader Stoxx 600 remains still down 1.8% on the year.