Europe

Authored by John Mauldin of MauldinEconomics.com,

Dear Donald and Hillary:

In around ten months, one of you will wake up as Mr. or Mrs. President. After the fabulous fun of post-inaugural balls, you will walk into the Oval Office on Saturday, January 22 and launch into your first 90 days in office.

During these days, you will want to deliver on as many of your promises as possible. But instead of shadowboxing with hypothetical futures on a debate stage, you’re going to be up against cold, hard reality.

Two days after the tragic terrorist attacks in Brussles, the situation remains extremely fluid, with the largest concern being that more sleeper cells may be activated especially since the third man who participated at the Zaventerm airport suicide bombing is still at large. Here, courtesy of the Guardian and Politico, are the most recent key developments out of Belgium.

As the chaos surrounding the coordinated suicide attacks on Belgium unfolded on Tuesday morning, we reported that energy utility Electrabel was evacuating two nuclear power plants, Doel, made up of four reactors, and Tihange, comprised of three.

Electrabel would later dispute that account, drawing a distinction between a full evacuation and the utility’s generous offer to non-essential employees: “...people who are not strictly necessary on site can leave.”

Following yesterday's dollar spike which topped the longest rally in the greenback in one month, the prevailing trade overnight has been more of the same, and in the last session of this holiday shortened week we have seen the USD rise for the fifth consecutive day on concerns the suddenly hawkish Fed (at least as long as the S&P is above 2000) may hike sooner than expected, which in turn has pressured WTI below $39 earlier in the session, and leading to weakness across virtually all global risk assets.

Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

A common misconception in America today is that our nation is evenly divided between conservatives and liberals in an absolute sense. This is not necessarily true.