United States

Authored by Alan Stanczyk via Medium.com,

Bitcoin was on my radar far back as 2011, but for years, I didn’t think much of it.

It was a curiosity. Nothing more.

With US forces in the middle-east in chaos and disarray, with Saudi Arabia unsure if it wants to side with Israel or other Arab nations, and with its ally Russia increasingly more influential in the region, Iran is not only increasingly flexing its muscles, but is hardly ashamed to show it off.

First it was the Chinese, now it’s the Europeans, as the rest of the world is suddenly very unhappy with the prospect of US tax reform (or maybe it is an unexpectedly strong US economy). As we discussed yesterday, with the historic Trump tax reforms on the verge of passage and the Fed’s dot plot signalling another 7-8 rate hikes (soon to be revised much lower), China is nervous that the capital outflows, which it thought it had bottled up, might be about to return.

Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) is turning up the heat on the Uranium One investigation, demanding documents from both the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a Monday letter to both entities. Barrasso wants to find out if he was intentionally misled by the Obama administration about Uranium One being able to export yellowcake uranium out of the United States after the company was acquired by Russia. 

Rep. John Barrasso (R-WY)

Barrasso writes: 

Last week, as part of its must read 2018 Outlook piece, Bank of America's derivatives team pointed out two particularly notable things: the first was BofA's version of the (central-bank mediated) "feedback loop" diagram that keeps volatility record low and grinding even lower, as selling of vol has become a self-reinforcing dynamic, in which lower VIX begets more vol-selling by "yield-starved investors", leading to even lower VIX as the shock that can reset the feedback loop is no longer possible, and thus the strike price on the Fed's put can not be put to a market test, which also results