While Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his displeasure with China for manipulating its currency, he appears to have recently figured out that over the past 2 years Beijing has been spending hundreds of billions in dollar to strengthen, not weaken, the Yuan and to halt the ~$1 trillion in capital flight from China.
European and Asian stocks were modestly in the green, with U.S. futures higher, before a critical procedural vote on a Republican health-care bill to repeal Obamacare, while Janet Yellen is set to speak in Washington at 8:45am.
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
Recent polls for Italian politicians supporting the eurozone and EU have collapsed.
Pro-Europe polls are highly likely to get worse as a further splintering of Matteo Renzi’s PD party takes place.
It is not out of question for Beppe Grillo’s eurosceptic Five Star Movement (M5S) party to achieve an absolute majority in the next election. However, please note that 40% is the threshold for a “majority”.
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
Sometimes you have to marvel at the absurdity of the financial universe in which we live.
On one side of the Atlantic, we have the United States of America, which triggered yet another debt ceiling disaster last Thursday when the US government’s maximum allowable debt reset to just over $20 trillion.
Of course, the US national debt is pretty much already at $20 trillion.
(That’s roughly $166,000 per taxpayer in the Land of the Free.)
By Nick Kounis of ABN Amro
Euro Rates Watch – Will the TLTRO spark carry trades?