Following another day of upbeat economic data, with growing signs that inflation on both sides of the Atlantic is accelerating, investors rediscovered their faith in the Trumpflation rally, pushing global stocks and US equity futures higher, fuelling a second day of 2017 equity gains ahead of today's release of the Fed's December minutes.
Rumors of the Trumpflation rally's death have been greatly exagerated, and not only is the Dow 20,000 back on the radar, following a 124 point surge in Dow futures, bringing the "key psychological level" back within 100 points, but European stocks rose for a third day and entered a bull market, rising 20% from theor lows set last February, following strong Chinese manufacturing and services PMI data, both of which ended 2016 on robust notes well inside expansion territory.
Over 50 days after Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi stunned India's population when he announced on November 8 he would unexpectedly eliminate 86% of the existing currency in circulation in what was supposed to be a crackdown on the shadow economy, but instead has resulted in a significant hit to the broader, cash-based economy, overnight we noted the first official confirmation of how substantial the impact of Modi's demonetization has been, when the Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index printed at 49.6 in December, the first contraction reading since December 2015, as the
If there is one company that wishes 2016 could be as quickly as possible put away in the history books, it was Apple: with the Apple watch now a confirmed dud, the iPhone 7 a bust relative to Apple's other offerings, demand for Apple's once brilliant creations waning, and the first recorded declines in both iPhone sales and earnings, 2016 was a year Tim Cook would love to never repeat. Alas, according to Japan's Nikkei, 2017 is set to begin with a whimper, not a bang, as Apple will trim production of its iPhones by at least 10% in the first quarter of 2017.
Aside from the previously noted FX fireworks early in the illiquid Asian session, which saw the US Dollar "flash crash" briefly against most pairs, including the Euro and the Swiss Franc...