S&P

The day the Dow crosses 20,000 may finally be here, because with DJIA futures trading 65 points higher in premarket trading, added to yesterday's close of 19,912 and latest record high in the S&P, it means that all it will take is a modest of only 25 points for the critical Dow threshold to be finally breached. Celebrating the upcoming record, world stocks hit a 19-month high on Wednesday, lifted by strong Japanese trade data, strong European company earnings and hopes that U.S. President Donald Trump will press ahead with a large fiscal spending package.

With storm clouds already building above the hedge fund industry, which as reported last night posted deplorable results in 2016 as only 32% of fundamental and quantitative funds outperformed their benchmarks according to JPM data - the worst performance this decade - leading to the largest redemption requests since the financial crisis, as over $100 billion was withdrawn from the industry last year, the latest shock to hedge fund investors, already displeased with underperforming the S&P for years, is the realization that they also pay for many if not all hedge fund expenses, resulting

While traders eagerly await Theresa May's speech set to begin in minutes, even if it was largely leaked last night to minimize "market shocks" and set the stage for a big squeeze in cable which at last check was over 100 pips higher overnight, the big catalyst setting today's risk off mood was the previously noted Trump statement, published overnight by the WSJ, in which Trump called the US currency "too strong", and attacked the Border-Tax Adjustment, expected to boost the value of the USD by as much as 15% should it be implemented.

Over the weekend, Barron's published its annual roundtable in which prominent investors previewed what they expect out of 2017: "a year of seismic shifts for the markets and, quite possibly, the world. Or, as Goldman Sachs strategist Abby Joseph Cohen said at this year’s Barron’s Roundtable, “We are breaking a lot of trends.” As Barron's dubbed it, "this could be the year the movie runs backward: Inflation awakens. Bond yields reboot. Stocks stumble. Active management rules.

Goldman is starting to get concerned.