United States

President Trump formally declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital and directed the State Department to start the process of moving the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. The move was said to demonstrate Trump’s inclination to prioritize domestic politics over the desires of U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe who warned the announcement could spark violence in a region that is already a powder keg, with the exception of Israel of course.

Here, courtesy of Bloomberg and Reuters, is a snapshot of the world's response to the historic Trump announcement:

Those who want to impeach Trump say his contacts (through Flynn and others) with high-level Russians, such as Russian Ambassador Kislyak, was treason … or at the very least an impeachable offense.

Others – without any proof – say that the president-elect’s team contacting foreign leaders is normal.

Who’s right?

The New York Times reports:

It is common and not improper for transition officials to meet with foreign officials.

As expected, President Trump on Wednesday recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and announced plans to relocate the U.S. embassy there, a decision that is certain to inflame tensions in the region and throw a wrench in potential peace negotiations, paradoxically uniting the fractured midle east world against Israel... and the U.S.

"I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel," Trump said shortly after 1pm in the White House.

Submitted by Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research

Today we want to expand on our recent thoughts on “What are retail investors buying right now?” We showed last week, courtesy of Fidelity Investments data, that mom-and-pops are still adding to positions even on breakouts in US equities. Further, the names at the top of the retail investor league table tend to be single stock Tech names rather than ETFs. Yesterday, for example, Fido’s retail customers were net buyers of NVDA, AMZN, and BABA and those names were the most heavily traded.

Following last night's API-reported huge product inventory builds, bulls were hoping DOE would rescue WTI/RBOB prices but it did not as the dat confirmed a huge crude draw and even bigger product build (gasoline's biggest weekly build since January). Adding to the pain, US crude production rose to another new record.