Europe

Last week we were surprised to learn that demand for hotel rooms at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, where the world's billionaires, CEOs, politicians, celebrities and oligarchs mingle every year (while regaled by their public relations teams known as the "media", for whom getting an invite to the DJ event du jour is more important than rocking the boat by asking unpleasant questions) was so great, not only are hotel rooms running out, but local employees may be put up in shipping containers in car parks to free up much needed accommodations.

European stocks were panic-bid at the open overnight as hungover New Year's Eve revelers (absent Brits and Swiss who were still on holiday) bought Italian banks, German utilities, and Spanish industrials following the better than expected manufacturing PMIs across most nations. EuroStoxx 50 gained 0.6% - thanks to a spike near the open - for the best open to a year since 2013.

The action was all at the open following a knee-jerk lower in EURUSD (snapping below 1.0500)...

One week after a video emerged of the Berlin Christmas market truck killer, Anis Amri, pledging allegiance to ISIS, on Monday the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deadly New Year’s Day terrorist attack in Istanbul that killed at least 39 people and wounded dozens more, claiming the operation had targeted Turkey in revenge for Turkish military operations against the organization in Syria, a similar justification used by the Turkish offduty policemen to assassinate the Russian ambassador in Turkey in December.

While most of the world is enjoying it last day off from the 2017 holiday transition, with Asia's major markets closed for the New Year holiday, along with Britain and Switzerland in Europe and the US and Canada across the Atlantic, European stocks climbed to their highest levels in over a year on Monday after the Markit PMI survey showed manufacturing production in the Eurozone rose to the highest level since April 2011.

Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org,