China

It is hardly a secret that thanks to nearly $4 trillion (at least) in credit creation in 2017 - more than the rest of the developed world combined - China has been the proverbial (and debt-funded) "growth" dynamo behind the recent period of "coordinated global growth." Unfortunately, much if not all of this was window dressing for the just concluded 19th Communist Party Congress, which in not so many words, made Xi Jinping into a de facto emperor with no apparent or otherwise heirs.

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US equity futures are higher, boosted by a bevy of better than expected earnings out of tech giants Amazon, Intel and Microsoft as Asian stocks and European shares climb amid the dovish sentiment unleashed from Thursday’s ECB update.

Earlier this week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping became the third ruler in the communist country’s history to have his named enshrined in its constitution – and the first to receive this honor while still alive. But as China celebrates its most popular, and most powerful, leader since at least Deng Xiaoping, Kyle Bass, hedge fund manager and noted China bear, told Bloomberg the Communist Party will one day regret standing idly by as Xi consolidated his power.

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.