Europe

The grocery business in the U.S. is, and always has been, a fairly miserable one.  In fact, from A&P to Grand Union, Dahl's, etc., bankruptcy courts have been littered with the industry's failures for decades.

Of course the reasoning is fairly simple...razor-thin operating margins that hover around 1-3% leave the entire industry completely incapable of absorbing even the slightest financial shock from things like increasing competition or food deflation. 

Via Francesco Filia of Fasanara Capital

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” – Leonardo da Vinci

Hard data ceased to be a driver for markets, valuation metrics for bonds and equities which held valid for over a century are now deemed secondary. Narratives and money flows trump hard data, overwhelmingly.

One day after Bloomberg commentator Richard Breslow looked at the market's big picture and said that "Traders Increasingly Have No Idea What's Going On", the former trader slammed the daily narrative flip-flopping by rangebound traders who goal seek the newsflow to justify any and all positional shifts, not to mention "following the price", saying that "not every change in asset prices signals a new and lasting paradigm shift." 

On April 20, just days before the first round of the French election, former president Obama caused a diplomatic stir when Reuters reported that he had spoken on the phone with French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron - the market-friendly candidate preferred by Europe's establishment.

According to reports from Fox News, Iran attempted to launch a cruise missile from a submerged Yono-class “midget” submarine in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday but the test ultimately failed.  Back in February, Iran claimed to have successfully tested a submarine-launched missile though it was not immediately clear if this week's test was the first time the Iranians had attempted to launch a missile from a submerged submarine.