United States

By the SRSrocco Report,

The global stock market is just a few days from entering the history books, largely thanks to the constantly priced in tax reform. As SocGen calculates, and barring any end of year sell-off, the MSCI World index is set to record it first ever year of posting a positive total return in every single month and will hit a remarkable sequence of 14 months of positive returns.

Global stocks and US equity futures roared upward to new record highs to start the second-to-last week of the year, boosted by optimism over a Republican agreement on the shape of U.S. tax cuts aimed at lifting growth; incidentally this is the 6th consecutive day that the "tax bill" has been priced in by the market, and according to cynics, 6th consecutive week and/or 6th month. Meanwhile, the dollar dropped and Treasuries headed lower.

Since the common currency's inception in 1999, the EUR-hedged yield 'offered' to European investors from investing in US Treasuries has never been worse...

As Bloomberg notes, for European investors using swaps to protect against currency swings, the benchmark 10-year U.S. yield fell Friday on a euro-hedged basis to around -60bps.

In other words, it costs European investors 60bps per year to 'own' 10Y Treasuries on a EUR-hedged basis.

Authored by Eric Margolis via EricMargolis.com,

At a time when the United States is convulsed by anti-Russian hysteria and demonization of Vladimir Putin, a trove of recently declassified Cold War documents reveals the astounding extent of the lies, duplicity and double-dealing engaged in by the western powers with the collapsing Soviet Union in 1990.