China

The Russian central bank opened its first overseas office in Beijing on March 14, marking a step forward in forging a Beijing-Moscow alliance to bypass the US dollar in the global monetary system, and to phase-in a gold-backed standard of trade.

According to the South China Morning Post the new office was part of agreements made between the two neighbours "to seek stronger economic ties" since the West brought in sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis and the oil-price slump hit the Russian economy.

Previously we reported that iron ore prices - having almost doubled in the past year and launching a global reflationary wave - are on the verge of tumbling as the world becomes increasingly aware that China has a "13,000 Eiffel Tower" record inventory problem.

And while we previously discussed the immediate adverse implications for iron ore bulls, the conseqences for the global economy could be far more material.

Conveniently, in a note this morning, BMO's Mark Steel looked at the same issue, focusing on the big picture implications.

Earlier this week we discussed the reason for the recent drop in iron ore prices, which had been attributed to the discovery of massive data fabrication and misrepresentation of commodity production cuts in China (think OPEC), whose biggest steel-producing province was found lying about mandatory output reductions, and instead of curbing was in fact accelerating production.

A steel factory in Wu'an, Hebei province

In a reminder that Donald Trump's trade policies - at least as he represented in the past, before surrounding himself with ex-Goldman globalists - are largely protectionist, on Friday, the US President will sign executive orders aimed at "identifying abuses" that are causing "massive U.S. trade deficits" and clamp down on non-payment of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imports, his top trade officials said quoted by Reuters.

Stocks fell worldwide on the last day of the quarter, with US equity futures pointing to a lower open even as the S&P is set for its best quarter since 2015 amid persistent economic and political uncertainty.