United States

On Monday Russia warned that it would begin aggressively reducing its dependence on the US Dollar and US-based payment systems, and shortly after it confirmed just that when Indonesia announced that it will barter coffee, palm oil, tea and various other commodities in exchange for 11 Russian-made Su-35 fighter jets, calling U.S. and European sanctions against Russia "an opportunity to boost the Southeast Asian nation's trade."

Russia will speed up work on reducing its dependence on U.S. payment systems and the dollar as a settling currency in response to U.S. sanctions, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Monday.

Authored by Christoph Gisiger via Finanz Und Wirtshcaft,

Fred Hickey, editor of the influential investment newsletter «The High-Tech Strategist», warns of trouble ahead for the stock market and spots bright opportunities in the gold sector.

When it comes to inflation in the US, there are generally two schools of thought:one is that inflation is woefully - and purposefully for political means - mismeasured, and that the real inflation is orders of magnitude higher than what the BLS, with its endless array of hedonic adjustments, reports. We discussed this view in May when we presented a presentation by Devonshire Research, which showed that "contrarian" CPI is closer to 8%, not the "post-modern" accepted rate of roughly 3%.

With the traditional post-payrolls market lull setting in, and most trading desks taking a week or two off, it will be a relatively quiet week with attention turning to inflation data with releases in the US, China, Norway & Switzerland, a key factor as central banks consider if/when to tighten in the near future. The US print will gain most attention: a strong number will validate the Fed's balance sheet unwind intentions and a potential December rate hike.