Europe

Ten people, including members of a BBC film crew, were injured following a huge and unexpected volcanic blast on Europe’s most active volcano, Mount Etna. The violent explosion caught the crew off guard as they were filming a report on the volcano. BBC correspondent Rebecca Morelle described the incident as “extremely scary” saying that it caused injuries and evacuation from scene. Bbc team all ok – some cuts/ bruises and burns. Very shaken though – it was extremely scary.

It seems Yellen's desperate attempt to tell the world that the US economy is doing fantastic BUT not well enough to raise rate more than 3 times appears to have let stocks hope down. Combine that with ECB comments and uncertainty over Trump's budget and the political 'put' rallied as stocks sank...

We're gonna need some more hawkish jawboning - as economic growth expectations collapse - to rescue this one...

On the heels of yesterday's McCain meltdown exclaiming that Rand Paul "is now working for Vladimir Putin," the Kentucky Senator released a short statement...

First Goldman, then RBC, and now JPM's top quant.

One month after JPM's head quant Marko Kolanovic warned that volatility is about to return and could lead to "accidents", the market timer also called "Gandalf" elsewhere for his prognosticative skills is out with a fresh warning, predicting "market weakness in the near-term" adding that he is cautious and urging clients to hedge equities.

With the Dutch Election behind them, it appears European stock investors see nothing but smooth-sailing ahead...

Europe's VIX collapsed overnight - by the biggest relative amount in its history - to close at the lowest level since the Euro began...

For context, this collapse compressed the relative risk premium for European stocks over US stocks to zero... something we have only seen historically at extreme systemic stress points...