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.
After North Korea provoked both its neighbors and the US when on Sunday morning it fired off yet another ballistic missile from Kusong near the border with China - one which this time did not explode upon launch - just days after the election of a new South Korean president who ironically advocates more engagement with Pyongyang, experts said the missile appeared to be a new type of ballistic missile, and had a far greater range than any other weapon North Korea has successfully launched.
There was a silver lining in what has been dubbed the "world's biggest ransomware attack" - it struck on Friday mid-afternoon (in Europe), just as businesses were winding down for the weekend, and as a result the full impact of the forced system shutdowns would not be fully felt over the weekend when businesses and infrastructure are generally operating at a subdued pace. However, with the weekend coming to a close, the full extent of the inflicted damage may become apparent in just a few hours.