Europe

Amid hope for reinvigorated auto production (after Hurricane Harvey's destruction) and yesterday's escalation in US-Russia tensions (Russia being the world's largest producer), spot Palladium is spiking today, hitting its highest since record highs in January 2001.

While the entire gamut of industrial and precious metals have been rising recently (the latter on the back of Chinese demand hype), Palladium prices exploded today out of nowhere (biggest jump in 7 months).

Pushing the precious metal to its highest in 16 years...

With payrolls looming (our full preview is here), carbon-based traders around the globe are leery of putting on any major trades and so the overnight session has been rather dull, dominated by the now traditional overnight algo-mediated levitation, which means the VIX is lower and S&P futures are once again modest higher as European and Asian shares continue their ascent.

Authored by Drieu Godefridi via The Gatestone Institute,

Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,

Thar she blows!

Once every 600,000 years or so Yellowstone’s supervolcano erupts, making Mt. St. Helens, Pinatubo, and Krakatoa look like firecrackers. It blankets thousands of miles around it in lava and ash, casting a pall over the earth that lowers temperatures and hinders plant life for decades. Compared to Mother Nature we anthropogenic climate changers (if we are that) are pikers. Interestingly enough, that supervolcano is due for another eruption.

Just minutes after Russia was given 2 days to implement today's decision by the State Department, shuttering Russia’s consulate in San Francisco, California and two diplomatic annexes in Washington, DC and New York City, in "the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians", the Russian responses started coming in, and they were not happy. 

Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was first on the tape, saying he  “expressed regret about the escalation of tensions in bilateral ties”, noting "it wasn’t Russia that started the escalation."