Via Bill Blain of Mint Partner,
We don’t think 2018 is going to be the End of the World. There will be opportunities and mistakes. Winners and grinners, and more than a few losers. Sure, we’re looking forward to the new MiFID regime – isn’t everyone? (US Readers…..)
U.S. equity index futures point to a higher open, having rebounded some 10 points off session lows with the VIX stuck on the edge between single and double digits, while European and Asian shares decline as investors assess central banks’ shift toward tighter monetary policy and concern over tax overhaul ahead of final plan.
It has been a groggy end to what is still set to be a third week of gains for MSCI’s global stock index following more upbeat data and signs that central banks including the Federal Reserve will keep treading carefully with interest rate hikes.
The U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union at the time it broke up and many other experts have said that the West promised Gorbachev that – if the USSR allowed German re-unification – NATO wouldn’t move “one inch closer” to Russia.
While Western leaders have long denied that such a promise, newly-declassified documents now prove this.
The National Security Archive at George Washington University reported Tuesday:
For almost 7 years, asset-gatherers and commission-takers have exclaimed "There Is No Alternative" to stocks, given how low interest rates are. However, given the recent buying-panic in stocks, TINA is now dead BAB is back (Bonds Are Better)...
In a sign the U.S. equity rally may be looking stretched, Bloomberg notes that the forward dividend yield on the S&P 500 has dropped below the return on Treasuries for the first time since 2011.
We said two days ago that it’s been a tough week for anybody who needs to heat their home or put gasoline in their cars in Britain. The litany of negative events and mishaps includes extremely low temperatures, the shutdown of the Forties pipeline due to a hairline crack and an explosion at one of the Europe’s biggest gas hubs in Austria, which further tightened UK supplies.
As we noted, the price of gas futures surged by the most in 8 years. The timing of the gas hub explosion, as we head into Winter, couldn’t have been worse either.