Germany

EURUSD is testing overnight lows (and gold is tumbling) after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would prefer to go ahead with new federal elections rather than try to form a minority government.

Seeking her fourth term, Bloomberg reports that Merkel is “skeptical” about a minority government as it may not bring about necessary stability and is open to another so-called grand coalition with the Social Democratic party, she said in an interview with ARD television.

US index futures are unchanged, having recovered virtually all overnight session losses alongside the EURUSD following Merkel's failure to form a government, while European shares rise despite Angela Merkel's failure to form a new government. In the span of just hours, the goalseeked "hot take" consensus was that Germany’s collapsed coalition talks aren’t expected be a deal breaker for European equities due to the "strength of the German economy."

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

We warned on Friday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced a 'night of the long knives' in her efforts to bring together the co-called 'Jamaica' coalition of four parties and after a desperate weekend of talks, Bloomberg reports Merkel's efforts at forming a coalition have failed meaning a second election looms and sending the euro sliding.

The euphoria of the past month has ended with a thud and BTFDers are strangely missing as the commodity chill out of China (which overnight became full blown carnage), has unleashed a global risk-off phase ahead of today's critical CPI data, resulting in broad and sharp selling across global markets, as European stocks followed declines in Asia while bonds and gold advanced. The equity retreat, which spread to U.S. stock futures, started with last night's sharp puke in Chinese commodities.