Europe

(GLOBALINTELHUB) - 10/28/2017 --

Update (0920ET): A Spanish government spokesman has responded to Puigdemont's address, saying that "Spain will not comment on comments by Puigdemont who is out of a job."

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As we detailed earlier, in a pre-record message this morning, Catalan separtist leader Carles Puigdemont urged Catalans to peacefully oppose Spain's formal takeover of the region's affairs.

Apparently, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban thinks his propaganda campaign to discredit Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros - Orban’s political archnemesis - hasn’t been sufficiently effective.

Earlier this week, we pointed out that the 'PetroYuan' is on the verge of becoming reality with Graticule's Adam Levinson noting that the birth of a yuan-denominated oil contract will be a “huge story” in the fourth quarter, and will be a “wake up call” for investors who haven’t paid attention to the plans.

As a reminder, nothing lasts forever...

Judging by the 200 pip tumble since the ECB's meeting on Thursday, the EURUSD was at 1.1614 moments ago, the unexpectedly dovish taper clearly surprised many, and attention has fallen on the open-ended nature of the operation as the focus of that surprise. And speaking of said "open-ended" taper, overnight Boersen-Zeitung reported that Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, Executive Board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger and Dutch central bank Governor Klaas Knot all opposed Draghi's decision.