United States

It appears the Commerce Department's preliminary ruling, issued late last night, to slap a 220% tariff on Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier could trigger an all-out trade war between the UK and Canada (on one side) and the US (on the other) as public officials in the UK and Canada blasted the ruling and threatened retaliation should the sanctions, which still need to be approved by the US International Trade Commission, become permanent.

Defense Secretary James Mattis was the target of a failed rocket attack near a key Afghanistan airport Wednesday, the Taliban said, though the attack occurred after he had left the airport. Hours after Mattis landed, as many as 40 rockets were fired at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport from an unknown location and landed in an open area, according to Najib Danish, spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry. US military officials added that a barrage of up to 40 rounds of munitions hit the airport, including 29 rocket-propelled grenades.

The fourth round of Nafta talks began in Ottawa over the weekend, and as US Trade Rep Robert Lighthizer and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts scramble to produce a deal by the end of the year – a self-imposed, “soft” deadline – Boeing inflamed trade tensions by winning a decision to slap a massive tariff on struggling Bombardier’s C-Series jet, potentially severing one of the last lifelines for the once-proud aircraft manufacturer.

S&P futures are set for a higher open (+ 0.1%) despite the expected hit to the Dow from Nike which is down over 3% on unexpectedly poor revenue growth, as European stocks gain while Asian shares dropped. Like yesterday when the big story was the jump in the USD ahead of Yellen's (rather hawkish) speech, so today the greenback's levitation has continued, this time propelled by today's unveiling of Trump's tax plan.

Something appears to be off. After two consecutive admissions by Janet Yellen that the Fed has lost its grasp on the "mystery" of inflation, the market no longer appears eager to chase the direction of every Fed proclamation, especially the recent, hawkish ones. And, as Bloomberg's Mark Cudmore writes this morning, "whether it’s because the Fed has lost credibility or just because Yellen is viewed as a lame duck approaching the end of her term, it doesn’t matter - U.S. rates and the dollar show investors aren’t buying what she’s selling."