United States

In a new report that may come as music to the ears of Mario Draghi, who has been valiantly hoping to show the European economy recovering while keeping the EURUSD below the "red line" of 1.20, BofA FX strategist Athanasios Vamvakidis is out with a new note today urging currency traders to "stop fighting the central banks", in other words stop selling the USD and buying the EUR, and recommends shorting the EURUSD to 1.15 with a 1.21 stop loss. 

On Tuesday, during the peak of the Harvey-related flooding, we reported that the hurricane may leave a greater trail of automobile destruction than even Katrina, the most expensive natural disaster in US history. In August 2005, Katrina wiped out some 500,000-600,000 vehicles but William Armstrong of CL King warned that Houston has about 5x more people than New Orleans did at the time.

With just one month left until the "X Date", better known as the first day on which Treasury has exhausted its borrowing authority and no longer has sufficient funds to pay all of its bills in full and on time, and also known as the date the US is technically in default on its debt obligations and would be forced to prioritize debt payments according to that infamous 2011 Fed transcript...

Update: Russia's response was quick:

• LAVROV TELLS TILLERSON HE REGRETS ESCALATION OF TENSIONS
• LAVROV: RUSSIA TO STUDY U.S. MEASURES AGAINST CONSULATES: RIA

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Tit for tat.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has just updated its forecast for what it is now referring to as a "rapidly intensifying" Category 2 hurricane in the Eastern Atlantic ocean and the results look disastrous for a large swath of the Caribbean and Southeastern United States.  Here is a brief summary of Hurricane Irma from the National Hurricane Center released at 11AM EST: