German Chancellor Angela Merkel has now jumped on the bandwagon, warning against the power of ‘fake news’ on social media. EU bureaucrats voted on a non-legislative resolution Wednesday that calls for a response to counter Russian propaganda threats, equating RT and Sputnik news agencies to Daesh (ISIS) propaganda outlets.
The challenges facing Germany's second-largest shipping lender, German Landersbank NordLB first emerged this summer, when we reported that the bank was considering taking full control of its smaller, distressed peer, Bremer Landesbank (BLB), which was struggling under the weight of a portfolio of bad shipping loans in what effectively constituted a state-backed bailout. BLB, of which NordLB already owns 54.8%, had warned that it would have to take a €400m writedown on its shipping portfolio, and that as a result it was facing a “mid-triple-digit million loss” this year.
In a quiet overnight session in which Japan was closed, European shares are mixed as financials and auto weigh, Asian stocks rise led by materials while S&P futures little changed against a backdrop of the continuing commodity rally with oil holding near $48 a barrel, up fractionally on the session. Against a basket of currencies, the dollar index was up slightly at 101.12, very close to a 14-year peak. The dollar also kept most of its recent hefty gains on the yen at 111.05 though it has met resistance around 111.35 in the last couple of sessions
Back in early 2003, I was walking with a New York friend through an exhibit of Weimar-era German paintings at the Neue Galerie on the Upper East Side. After a while, she said, “You can almost hear the trains to Auschwitz coming in the distance.” Her point was that the despair and restlessness captured by those beautiful, disturbing paintings telegraphed the coming cataclysm.
With the Trumpflation euphoria easing back slightly overnight, leading to a modest paring in the USD index and US Treasury yields, Asian and European stocks rose, while US equity futures rebounded to just shy of new all time highs, as crude jumped on renewed optimism that OPEC will agree to cut output; Italian equities underperformed ahead of the Italian referendum; metals rebounded from last week’s losses as yields dropped and the dollar halted its longest winning streak versus the euro.