Europe

As noted earlier, the return of the "Trump Trade", however brief, on the back of tax reform euphoria and Hawkish Yellen has dominated market sentiment, resulting in the latest bond market "crash", sending yields to a nearly three month high of 2.35% earlier this morning, and as Bill Blain showed in a chart, it took just three weeks to reverse the fall we saw in July and August, up 30bps in days, while Bunds are up 20bp and even JGBs are up 5bp (far greater rises in relative terms).

In a continuation of trading patterns observed over the previous two days, on Thursday the global bond rout deepened in the aftermath of the release of President Trump’s tax-cut plan, Janet Yellen's recent hawkish comments and renewed optimism over the health of the U.S. economy.

Just days after The Economist primed the world with its narrative that sending 1.2 bilion unskilled Africans to Europe would increase global GDP, The EU's executive has unveiled plans to resettle at least 50,000 refugees, focusing on people from northern Africa, to bypass smugglers.

As we noted previously, The Economist's argument is plain idiotic.  

 

The macro-economic climate is “about as good as it is going to get,” according to a new economic outlook from PIMCO, with  Joachim Fels and Andrew Balls warning that "the last time a similar combination prevailed was in 2006 - and that didn’t end well."

Via PIMCO,

As Good As It Gets

It’s easy to get lulled into complacency by synchronized global growth, easy financial conditions and super-low economic and financial market volatility.

The man who made "nein" a household word everywhere, and especially Greece, will no longer be in charge of Europe's biggest economy.

As part of the fallout from Sunday's disastrous, for the CDU election, election which will see Merkel govern in a three-way coalition with the minor German parties, it was expected that Germany's iconic finance minister Wolfgang Schauble would be kicked out of his post. It also means that Germany's pro-business, low-tax FDP, whose support Merkel is likely to need, will be put in charge of the coveted finance ministry position.