Europe

Yesterday, in a mockery of economists' and strategists' recurring fascination with (wrong) year-end forecasts, we presented RBC's 7 "Costanza Trades" of 2017, or those trades which one would never, in their right mind, put on, which is precisely why in today's broken, upside down market, these are the trades one should seriously consider. Indicatively, last year's list of 10 such Costanza trades had 7 winners, some of which (long oil) returned as much as 41%.

Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

The terrorist who hijacked a truck in Berlin and ran over and killed 12 people, maiming and wounding 48 more, in that massacre in the Christmas market, has done more damage than he could imagine.

If the perpetrator is the jihadist from Tunisia who had no right to be in Germany, and had been under surveillance, the bell could begin to toll not only for Angela Merkel but for the European Union.

With fears mounting over China's debt load sustainability, and amid yet another liquidity crisis, President Xi Jinping appeared to admit that China's economic growth will slow below the government’s 6.5% target. Despite the promise of creating a "modestly prosperous society," Xi warned that China doesn’t need to meet the objective if doing so creates too much risk - a little late for that after trillions of freshly created credit was spewed into zombified firms this year - but at least reality is starting to set in.

Prince Charles has slammed the public for criticizing the rise in terrorist attacks across Europe and the West on radicalized Islamists.

Shortly after the Berlin truck terrorism suspect Anis Amri was killed in a shoot out with Milan police, railway tickets found on Amri's body showed he had traveled from Chambery in south-eastern France to Turin and then on to Milan, according to Italy's Ansa. Which is strange because while he kept ticket stubs, he had virtually nothing else on him: Milan police said Amri was carrying few personal belongings, had no cell phone and no other arms apart from a small knife in his backpack. He had several hundred euros but no documents.