British prime minister David Cameron is trying to fast-track an EU-Canada trade deal without parliamentary consent. A set of leaked notes that were allegedly made during the EU Foreign Affairs/Trade-Council in Brussels on 13 May, appears to show that the UK is aggressively pushing for a controversial trade between the EU and Canada to be implemented through parliament before MP’s have a chance to vote on the issue.
Following Monday's news that that EU, via Angela Merkel, had suspended plans to extend visa-free travel with Turkey, a public slap in the face of Turkey's president Recep Erdogan who had expected the deal to be ratified due to his threat of "unleashing" millions of refugees back into Europe, we said that "the question is whether the infuriated Turkish leader will resort to making good on his threat, and once again send out countless refugees along the Balkan route whose end destination is well-known: the wealthy countries of Central Europe."
The single biggest event overnight was the PBOC's devaluation of the Yuan to the lowest since March 2011, setting the fixing at 6.5693, the highest in over 5 years and in direct response to a stronger dollar, which however if one looks at the DXY remains well below the recent highs in the 100 range, suggesting for China this is only just beginning.
Yesterday's weak dollar headfake has ended and overnight the USD rallied, while Asian stocks dropped to the lowest level in 7 weeks and crude oil fell as speculation returned that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates as early as next month. The pound jumped and European stocks gained thanks to a weaker EUR.