United States

What until now was mostly effete jawboning over US complaints surrounding China's territorial expansion ambitions in the South China Sea, including the occasional sailing of a US ship deep inside the disputed territorial waters (with zero impact especially now that China may soon start building maritime nuclear power plants in the area), changed dramatically earlier today when China officially denied a U.S. carrier strike group's request for a port visit to Hong Kong next week.

The Stennis strike group

Over the years, Zero Hedge has proven to be a magnet for media attention.

It started years ago with a NY Magazine article published in September 2009 which first "unmasked" the people behind Zero Hedge with the "The Dow Zero Insurgency: The nothing-can-be-believed chaos of the financial crisis created a golden opportunity for a blog run by a mysterious ex-hedge-funder with a dodgy past and conspiracy theories to burn" in which we were presented as a bunch of "conspiracy theory" tin foil hat paranoid loons.

Following yesterday's Yen surge in the aftermath of the disappointing BOJ announcement, the pain for USDJPY long continued, with the key carry pair tumbling as low as 106, the lowest level since October 2014 before stabilizing around 107, and is now headed for its biggest weekly gain since 2008, which in turn has pushed the US dollar to to its lowest close in almost a year as signs of slowing growth in the U.S. dimmed prospects for a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase. As a result, global stocks fell and commodities extended gains in their best month since 2010.

According to a report from the Russian Security Council, American leaders have been left in a state of “shock” after learning of Donald Trump’s successful take-over of one of the last US media giants that remained, until now, free form any “Freemasonic influence”.  The Kremlin say that the Freemasons have used Trump and the 2016 US Presidential election to initiate a complete take-over of the country in what is being referred to as a coup d’etat.

Submitted by Kessler Companies

Output Gap Update - Q1 2016