Politics

After the formal handshakes took place in the Oval Office at the start of the Trump-Abe talks, the US president remarked, "strong hands," of PM Abe.  It was not clear if they were also bigger...

h/t @Markknoller

Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Slovenia on Friday for offering to host his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, saying he is ready to meet his American counterpart, Donald Trump, however added that the prospect of such a meeting hinges on Washington. "It depends not only on us, but we are naturally ready for it," he said. The Russian leader hailed Slovenia, where Trump's wife Melania was born and grew up, as an "excellent" venue for possible talks with Trump.

Twice in one week.

Just days after ECB president Mario Draghi (and other Europeans) suggested that Trump's proposed deregulation has "sown the seeds of the next financial crisis", when he told the European Parliament that "the last thing we need at this point in time is the relaxation of regulation. The idea of repeating the conditions that were in place before the crisis is something that is very worrisome", clearly ignoring that one of the biggest timebombs facing the world is his own balance sheet... 

After a couple of months of animal-spirit-inducing exuberance in soft-survey-hope-data, UMich consumer sentiment printed a disappointing 95.7 in Feb (versus 98.0 exp and down from 98.5 in Jan). The biggest driver was a notable drop in 'hope' as Democrats Expectations plunged near record lows.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said that the allegations of torture and mass hangings in one of his military prisons were the product of a “fake news era”. Assad claims that human rights group, Amnesty International, had fabricated evidence to discredit his government.