Europe

Negative interest rates and the populist uprising that spurred the UK to vote for Brexit and Americans to elect Trump has helped reignite a rush into physical safe haven assets like gold and silver, which however has led to a shortage of safe venues where to store the precious metals (unlike bitcoin, gold actually has a physical dimension). And now companies that operate storage facilities for precious metals and other valuables are ramping up their capacity to help cash in on the soaring demand for storage facilities.

Authored by Ruthie Blum via The Gatestone Institute,

The United Arab Emirates declared on Wednesday that anyone publishing statements sympathetic to Qatar could be punished with up to 15 years in prison, and said it would deny entry to anyone with a Qatari passport or resident visa.

Just four days after Banco UnPopular chairman Emilio Saracho told his employees "don't panic" as a result of the company's crashing stock price, on Wednesday morning the ECB confirmed that the sixth largest Spanish bank was indeed on the verge of collapse and ordered it to be sold, which is what happened when Santander acquired the bank for €1.00 after Santander's equity and riskiest debt instruments were bailed-in, i.e. wiped out, imposing losses of about €3.3 billion on the bank’s securities holders.

European and Asian stocks, as well as S&P futures were little changed ahead of "Super Thursday's" events which include the U.K. general election, Comey's testimony and the ECB policy decision. That however may change following a Bloomberg news report that the ECB is set to cut inflation forecasts through 2019 due to weaker energy prices, suggesting the "hawkish" ECB announcement some had expected tomorrow has been postponed.