In a unexpectedly gloomy note from BofA's Chief strategist David Woo, titled "Sell before it's too late", the analyst writes that this is "a market with risk off written all over it" largely as a result of a string of weaker-than-expected US data over the past week, which "has only strengthened our view that the US economy is losing momentum" and adds that the culprit is the lack of progress in tax reform in Washington.
In an otherwise relatively quiet week in which the only upcoming US data is housing, current account and jobless claims, UK politics will again draw attention, one year (on Friday) after the Brexit referendum and as noted earlier, Brexit negotiations begin on Monday, despite lingering political uncertainty in the UK. Also no less than 9 FOMC members are scheduled to speak this week.
Shortly after Russia's deputy foreign minister slammed the US downing of a Syrian Su-22 jet as an "act of aggression" and "support for terrorists", Russia announced that starting June 19 it was halting all interactions with the US under the framework on the "memorandum of incident prevention in Syrian skies", the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday, thereby assuring the probability of even more deadly escalations between Russia and the US-led coalition.
Russia slammed yesterday's downing of a Syrian fighter jet by the US-led alliance - the first such escalation since the start of the conflict in 2011 - which CENTCOM said was "in defense of partners from the Syrian Democratic Forces", with Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov saying on Monday the attack was an "act of aggression" and assistance for terrorists that the US is fighting against.
S&P futures rose 0.3% in subdued trading with Dow Jones futs once again in record territory as European stocks jump 0.6% following Sunday's landslide victory for Macron's party in the French parliamentary elections and as Brexit negotiations are set to officially roll out on Monday.