United States

Get ready for nuclear war, S. Koreans. The United States will have plenty of opportunities to help defend your nation against a sundry of missiles, some armed with poisonous gas, others of the nuclear varietal. But some will slip by, leveling your cities to ash -- pushing you back into the bronze age. But from that ash will rise Samsung, greater and stronger than ever. Miraculously, you will be placed under a Marshall plan, led by the United States "and its allies", to rebuild your proud peninsula.

Despite yesterday's whopping beats by Amazon and Google which sent the Nasdaq to new record highs after hours, and brought Jeff Bezos "this close" to overtaking Bill Gates as the world's richest man, this morning futures S&P futures are little changed ahead of the closely watched Q1 GDP report, European stocks and Asian equities are slightly lower, oil is higher after Russia's energy minister Novak said Russia had reached the 300kbpd oil cut per the OPEC pact, and the dollar was modestly in the red.

Just over a month ago we highlighted the comments of one recently deported Mexican nationalist who told Reuters that illegally immigrating to the U.S. was over, courtesy of the Trump administration, and that it was "Canada's turn" to welcome the world's immigrants with open arms.

"For those without documents, I think (the United States) is over. Now it's Canada's turn."

Two days after launching a trade war with Canada by imposing tariffs on lumber imports, one day after nearly terminating NAFTA (but stopping just shy after an alleged phone call from the leaders of Mexico and Canada), Trump has finally turned his attention to the one nation whose GDP consists of roughly 60% net trade, and which we said several months ago, is far more likely to be punished for trade malpractice than China: South Korea.

Via SRSroccoReport.com,

There’s this notion put forth by the majority in the precious metals community that the Fed and Central Banks control the market price of gold.  I have even heard that some analysts believe the Fed could push the gold price any where they saw fit…. even to zero.  While I agree that the Central Banks do play a role in gold market intervention, they most certainly CANNOT push the price of gold anywhere they want.  This is an absolute falsity…. and I have the data to prove it.