United States

S&P futures point to a slightly lower open, while Asian and European stocks are likewise modestly in the red. Trading volumes are muted for most markets on Monday with investors spooked by rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula. It is also a holiday-shortened week in much of the West. As Bloomberg puts it, there is a "sense of unease" across markets, with global stocks mixed as investors weighed looming security risks and French bonds retreating ahead of the election following the surprising surge of far-leftist Melenchon in the polls.

With the US now engaged in military conflict with, and targeting Syrian army forces, what the Trump administration has (un)wittingly done is provide support to Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra and other terrorist forces, all of which have been engaging with the Assad regime in a fight in which the Syrian president has gradually seen the tide of war turn in his favor. At least until last Friday's US cruise missile attack that is. 

Authored by Nick Cunningham of OilPrice.com,

The global market for LNG is changing quickly, spurred on by new sources of supply from U.S. shale.

U.S. natural gas production surged over the past decade, as fracking opened up a wave of new gas supply. That wave led to a glut and a crash in prices long before shale drillers did the same for oil. The U.S. was sitting on massive volumes of gas that routinely traded as low as $2 or $3 per million BTU (MMMBtu).

I am not a particularly big fan of the idea that markets are efficient. In fact I think people who believe this have never spent any time working in investment management. Everyone in the industry has seen how investment fads wash over the industry from time to time, only to wash out again as returns begin to disappoint.

    - Russell Clark, CIO of Horseman Global

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who has done a remarkable job of continuing the diplomatic tone set by her predecessor Samantha Power, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” which will air in full on Sunday, that regime change in Syria as one of the Trump administration's top priorities in Syria.  Her statement was a complete U-turn from what she said just over a week ago, when she told a group of reporters that the US was "no longer focused on getting Assad out."