Europe

After starting out strongly this morning, with DB stock trading just shy of $17/share, European banks have seen some weakness in the past hour following a report from Reuters, in which sources were cited as saying that there is "firm support for a deposit rate cut within the European Central Bank's Governing Council." While a year ago this would have sent European stocks soaring, this is no longer the case as explained by none other than Deutsche Bank last weekend:

As we have reported previously on various occasions things are bad for European banks: from DB's record wide 5Y Sub CDS, to Credit Suisse record low stock price, to everyone else inbetween. But did you know that for most European banks, 2016 is shaping up far worse than the dreaded 2008? As the following chart from Reuters shows, the year-to-date stock price performance for most European banks is on pace to far surpass - to the downside - the dreadful for the global financial system 2008.

Having been at the forefront of the recent collapse in core European bank stock prices, Deutsche Bank has - as we first reported last weekend - been 'crying uncle' but not in a way most would expect: instead of begging for more central bank easing, DB told the ECB (and BOJ) to stop easing as negative rates and more excess liquidity, are crushing it. This is why central banks are trapped, because they are damned if they don't ease any more with the global economy on the edge of recession, and damned if they ease further, pushing bank default risk even higher.

There was some hope in early Japanese trading that after a seemingly endless rout in the USDJPY, which has seen the Yen surge the most in the past two weeks since the 1998 Asian crisis, the BOJ would intervene, if not via policy where it has botched things up beyond repair then directly by selling Yen on the tape: the reason for this is not only yesterday's direct intervention that sent the USDJPY soaring by over 150 pips briefly, but also after a report that Finance Ministry’s FX chief Masatsugu Asakawa met deputy chief cabinet secretary to discuss market issues; this was followed by a mee

If you believed America’s longest war, in Afghanistan, was coming to an end, be advised: It is not.

Departing U.S. commander Gen. John Campbell says there will need to be U.S. boots on the ground “for years to come.” Making good on President Obama’s commitment to remove all U.S. forces by next January, said Campbell, “would put the whole mission at risk.”