Europe

With the French election in the rearview mirror, Europe's anti-establishment wave seemingly receding, and Merkel's crushing victory (and stunning defeat for the SPD) in this weekend's North Rhine-Westphalia election in Germany, some strategists have gone so far as to say there is virtually no political risk left in Europe (and certainly looking at a chart of Eurostoxx50 Vol or European credit spreads, this appears to be the case). To be sure, stocks have been ahead of the curve, with European YTD returns trouncing those in  the US, and some pundits saying there is much more upside to come.

Authored by Andrew Syrios via The Mises Institute,

Last month, former Vermont governor Howard Dean announced that "hate speech is not protected by the first amendment." Specifically, Dean was opposing a proposed speaking engagement for columnist Ann Coulter, whose ideas are apparently so offensive to Dean, that even the most fundamental freedoms cannot be allowed to endure. 

Equity strategists are cooling on the prospects for further gains in European stocks just as investors poured a record amount of money into the region’s equity funds...

After a French election victory for centrist Emmanuel Macron and analysts suggesting that optimism over better profits is largely priced in, forecasters now see fewer triggers for the rally to continue in 2017.

If you can believe the screaming headline, one of the gurus behind one of the gold newsletters is going all-in to gold, buying a million dollars of mining shares. If (1) gold is set to explode to the upside, and (2) mining shares are geared to the gold price, then he stands to get seriously rich(er).

It was supposed to be China's day of celebrating massive infrastructure spending for the sake of spending (read ghost towns, only now outside China's borders) as Xi Jinping pledged $124 billion on Sunday for his new Silk Road plan to forge "a path of peace, inclusiveness and free trade" while calling for the abandonment of old models based on rivalry and diplomatic power games. However, it did not go quite as smoothly as expected.