After yesterday's US and UK market holidays which resulted in a session of unchanged global stocks, US futures are largely where they left off Friday, up fractionally, and just under 2,100. Bonds fell as the Federal Reserve moves closer to raising interest rates amid signs inflation is picking up. Oil headed for its longest run of monthly gains in five years, while stocks declined in Europe.
In his op-ed in the Washington Post, Chris Grayling, leader of the House of Commons, made the case for British withdrawal from the European Union—in terms Americans can understand.
Would you accept, Grayling asks, an American Union of North and South America, its parliament sitting in Panama, with power to impose laws on the United States, and a high court whose decisions overruled those of the U.S. Supreme Court?
In a world in which everything has devolved to threats of Mutual Assured Destruction of the "if something does not happen then the world will end" variety observed most notably with the scaremongering campaign over Brexit in which David Cameron recently went as far as suggesting that war could break out should the UK leave the EU (as well as currency collapse, recession, and some of the worst parts of the bible), it only makes sense to take whatever works and run with it.
One of the recurring concerns voiced by Bank of America's Michael Hartnett is that with May now in the rearview mirror, we are entering "the event risk month" of June (incidentally, over the weekend, the credit strategist presented several ideas how to trade said event risk, either bullish or bearish). Now it is UBS' turn to reiterate the warning that June may see a spike in volatility due to "an unusual number of known unknowns."
A world-renowned expert on the Italian mafia, journalist Roberto Saviano, says the UK is “the most corrupt country in the world”. Saviano has spent more than a decade exposing the criminal dealings of the Italian Mafia.