United States

The U.S. have dispatched three B-2 stealth bombers to the Asia-Pacific region amid escalating tensions with North Korea.  U.S. Strategic Command announced the deployment on Wednesday morning, but said the exact destination of the bombers were a secret. Townhall.com reports: The deployment was announced Wednesday by U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for U.S. nuclear forces. B-2 bombers are capable of launching nuclear as well as conventional weapons. They are based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

American political analyst Richard Forer has said that he believes the US government to be “cultivating the seeds of terrorism” by giving Israel unconditional support which, in turn, allows groups such as ISIS to thrive.  Speaking with Press TV, Forer noted that US Vice President Joe Biden’s vow to protect Israel at all costs, and his “deep and personal” friendship with Netanyahu means that America is aligning itself with ethnic cleansing policies and abuse of international law.

Via ConvergEx's Nick Colas,

Today we engage in a simple thought experiment: what 3 pieces of information would you need to confidently call the 2016 end-of-year level on the S&P 500?

 

A brief survey of senior Convergex traders yielded this list: year-end worldwide central bank rates, Chinese GDP growth in 2016, actual 2016 US corporate earnings, the winner of the U.S. presidential race, and the pace of increases in the Fed Funds rate for the year. 

 

Even as US crude oil inventories just hit a fresh record high for another week, both in Cushing and across all other regions, a more curious accumulation of excess oil inventory has emerged: according to the IEA, global oil production exceeded consumption by just over 1 billion barrels in 2014 and 2015.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

All this is to suggest that those expecting a major weakening in the USD to push oil higher shouldn't hold their breath awaiting this outcome.