China

As North Korea advances toward achieving its long-term goal of developing a nuclear-armed ICBM capable of reaching the US mainland (or at least Sarah Palin's home state), a host of defectors who've managed to escape from the isolated Communist state have gathered testimonies about the North’s human-rights abuses in hopes of "optically" pushing international diplomacy to their, and the US' diplomatic advantage.

In what has been a less exciting session than the previous two, the euro retraced some recent gains as traders grew concerned they may have overestimated the ECB's hawkish bias ahead of Thursday’s rate decision; in turn the dollar edged higher after the collapse of the GOP healthcare bill sent it to the lowest since September on Tuesday.

Not even Citi could infuse any  excitement in the overnight session, which its called "Purgatorial":

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Diesel and gasoline prices in North Korea have jumped since China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) halted sales of fuel to Pyongyang, Reuters reported on Monday, citing data on prices collected by North Korean defectors. 

At the end of last month, reports emerged that CNPC, the main supplier of diesel and gasoline to North Korea, has suspended fuel sales to North Korea because it is worried that it may not receive payments.

In the second quarter in Manhattan, Chinese entities accounted for half of the commercial real estate purchases with prices over $10 million. By comparison, in 2011 through 2014, total cross-border purchases from all over the world (not just from China) were in the mid-20% range.

“At a time when domestic investors have pulled back, foreign parties have ramped up their holdings in Manhattan,” according to Avison Young’s Second Quarter Manhattan Market Report.

Early this morning, we discussed the unexpected tumble in the Chinese small-cap stock index, the ChiNext, will plunged by over 5%...

... as a result of growing concerns that a new round of deleveraging is about to be imposed by Beijing following the conclusion of China’s 5th National Financial Work Conference (NFWC), which was attended by president Xi Jinping, and set the agenda for critical financial reforms over the coming years. As the People's Daily noted on Monday: