China

Shortly after the news that later on Sunday, president Trump would hold a phone call with China president Xi and Japan's PM Abe, the White House said in an advance schedule that on April 26 it will hold a briefing for senators with its “four principals” on North Korea "as the administration considers its options for dealing with saber-rattling from Pyongyang" according to Bloomberg. Among those present will be Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A third US citizen has been arrested and remains in custody in North Korea, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap. A man, a Korean-American professor in his 50s, identified by the surname Kim, had been in North Korea for a month to discuss relief activities and was detained at Pyongyang International Airport just as he was leaving North Korea, the agency reported.

By Andrew Brown, a partner for macro and strategy at ShoreVest Capital Partners

From a global macroeconomic perspective, we encourage readers to consider that the world is experiencing an extended, rolling process of deflating its credit excesses. It is now simply China’s turn.

While US and North Korean officials have traded verbal missiles in the past few days, China has been noticably quiet. However, that just changed as a prominent Chinese expert told The Nikkei that China likely will halt crude oil exports to North Korea should Pyongyang conduct its sixth nuclear test, signaling a tougher attitude by Beijing toward its rogue neighbor.

In Crispin Odey's latest letter to investors, the billionaire hedge fund manager laments "how quickly everything has changed", notes that "without the reflation fireworks, equity markets feel vulnerable", and concludes that while a year ago it was easy to be bearish - China was slowing, world trade was creaking, Europe was not recovering and the oil price was hitting new lows - "a year later to be bearish feels lonely, despite the fact that the reflationary story of the past year looks difficult to sustain and auto loan lending has joined a long list of risks along with Trump and Br