Europe

When we first warned 8 days ago that in the last week of trading a "Red Flag For Markets Has Emerged: Pension Funds To Sell "Near Record Amount Of Stocks In The Next Few Days", and may have to "rebalance", i.e. sell as much as $58 billion of equity to debt ahead of year end, many scoffed wondering who would be stupid enough to leave such a material capital reallocation for the last possible moment in a market that is already dangerously thin as is, and in which such a size order would be sure to move markets lower, and not just one day.

First it was the US, then Germany blamed much of what is wrong in society on "fake news", and not, say, a series of terrible decisions made by politicians. Now it is Italy's turn to call for an end to "fake news", which in itself would not be troubling, however, the way Giovanni Pitruzzella, head of the Italian competition body, demands the European Union "cracks down" on what it would dub "fake news" is nothing short of a total crackdown on all free speech, and would give local governments free reign to silence any outlet that did not comply with the establishment propaganda.

Aside from the previously noted FX fireworks early in the illiquid Asian session, which saw the US Dollar "flash crash" briefly against most pairs, including the Euro and the Swiss Franc...

Billionaires are the richest of the rich. Many young entrepreneurs hope to one-day reach this ultimate financial milestone. But before these entrepreneurs are allowed to join this group, they first must ask how did billionaires acquire their wealth in the first place? Take a look at the map below to see the distribution of billionaires by country and type.

Having already made it clear that any sanctions would be met with retaliation, IFX reports that Russian Commissioner Foreign Ministry on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, Konstantin Dolgov exclaimed that "any anti-Russian sanctions are futile and counter-productive."

Via IFX (Google Translate)