United States

Amid growing tensions in the Korean peninsula, over 2,000 US troops have arrived in South Korea to take part in a joint military exercise. The joint US-South Korean exercises will be largest military drills to be staged on the Korean Peninsula and are both a warning to Pyongyang as well as an effort to reassure the ‘jittery public‘ in the South. Following recent UN sanctions and citing growing enemy threats, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered his military forces to prepare for using nuclear weapons.

It never ceases to amaze (and amuse) us how much time big bank "economists" and "strategists" spend on Zero Hedge - even though we have never compensated said banks either directly or with soft dollars - instead of doing research, or spending time with their paying clients.

Just one week ago, it was CitiFX's Brent Donnelly who was "critical" why the financial media, supposedly, "highlights bearish stories" (perhaps has has missed the past 8 years of CNBC "reporting"... we don't know). This is what he said:

Give the people what they want

 

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its data on U.S. trade in goods by selected countries and world region for 2015. HowMuch.net built three maps to provide a proportional visualization of the trade that occurs between the U.S. and other countries.

Submitted by Nick Bernabe via TheAntiMedia.org,

The Mexican drug cartels are finally meeting their match as a wave of cannabis legalization efforts drastically reshapes the drug trafficking landscape in the United States. It turns out that as states legalize cannabis use and cultivation, the volume of weed brought across the border by Mexican drug cartels dramatically decreases — and is putting a dent in their cash flow.

JPM's head quant Marko Kolanovic is best known for timing the market's inflection points and quantifying - in plain English - the marginal buying and selling technicals at any given moment. In his latest overnight note he does not disappoint, explaining in simple terms "what the fate of the market rally is." We will give readers his answer... tomorrow.