Europe

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

One of the truly mind-boggling absurdities in modern finance has been the creation of ‘negative interest rates’ around the world.

Negative interest rates are particularly prominent in Europe.

Starting back in 2014, the European Central Bank (ECB) slashed its main interest rate to below zero.

One bizarre effect of this policy is that some banks have passed on these negative interest rates to their retail depositors.

The dollar today...

Summarizing the week's moves: Dollar dump sparks buying binge in bonds, bullion, and stocks (but sinks FANG Stocks)

And this was what happened in FX markets...

In what appears to be the latest weekly terrorist attack in Europe, 7 days after the deadly events in Barcelona, Sky News and Reuters report that a man was shot in the center of Brussels on Friday evening after attacking two soldiers with a knife, according to state broadcaster RTBF reported.

Even as recent European outcast Poland is demanding World War II reparations from Germany, causing a rift between Warsaw and Berlin, it has engaged in another diplomatic feud, this time with French president Macron, who as we learned overnight spends $10,000 each month on make up.

Via StockBoardAsset.com,

Police in Rome evicted 100s of refugees that had occupied Piazza Independenza just one block from the country’s main train station.

The squatters were defiant so local police used water cannons and batons in the forceful eviction. As Reuters reports,

Some 100 refugees had occupied Piazza Independenza since Saturday, when most of about 800 squatters were evicted from an adjacent office building they had occupied for about five years.