Japan

The USS Fitzgerald, a guided missile destroyer, collided with a merchant vessel southwest of Yokosuka, Japan, the U.S. Navy said in a statement on Friday afternoon. The crash happened at approximately 2:30 a.m. local time on June 17, and the Navy requested Japan's Coast Guard's assistance.

The Navy said the Fitzgerald collided with a merchant vessel 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka and the extent of injuries to U.S. personnel "is being determined." It added that the Navy had requested the assistance of the Japanese Coast Guard.

Bitcoin prices (in dollars) have surged above $3000 for the first time in history this morning as CoinTelegraph reports that South Korea and Japan, the third and fourth largest Bitcoin exchange markets, are no longer showing Bitcoin price premiums.

Source: BitcoinWisdom.com

Having reached over KRW4 million in late May (well north of $3600 when Bitcoin in dollars was trading at around $2400), the premium for Bitcoin in Korea (via Korbit) has collapsed to zero...

Source: Korbit

So far "Triple Threat Thursday" has been a dud. In the day with the greatest concentration of market-moving risk events so far in 2017, market action - at least for the time being - has been a whimper, with European stocks and US futures modestly higher ahead of the ECB’s rate decision and Comey's testimony (which has now been fully publicized, removing much of the risk), as the U.K. voting is underway. Asian stocks fell led by a decline in Japan as the yen first strengthened, only to tumble later in the session.

"This is an accident that does not exist in the past tense, but in the present progressive form," exclaimed Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori earlier in March, criticizing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for not explicitly the disaster in his annual speech. “It’s not possible to avoid using the important and significant terms of the nuclear plant accident of nuclear power disaster.”

S&P futures point to a slightly lower open ahead of today's US non-mfg ISM and Service PMI data. European shares fall, while Asian shares are little changed. Several European countries, including Germany, are closed for Whit Monday leading to subdued trading. Crude futures have reversed overnight gains following the latest unexpected Gulf Crisis overnight, in which Gulf nations cut all diplomatic relations with Qatar amid striking allegations of funding terrorism, as reported overnight.