United States

After December's brief dead cat bounce, in which foreign central banks bought $18.6 billion in US Treasuries, breaking a streak of 12 consecutive months of selling, in January they resumed their liquidation. According to the just released TIC data, foreign official institutions, which includes mostly central banks, but also sovereign wealth funds and various other official entities, sold another $44.9 billion in Treasuries, in line with the aggressive selling seen for most of 2016.

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Last night a good friend of mine came over for dinner.

He’s originally from Poland, and growing up there he heard a lot of bizarre stories about what it was like during the Nazi invasion and World War II.

In 1939, even as 1.5 million German soldiers prepared to invade, the general mood in Poland couldn’t have been more carefree.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The proposed border adjustment tax has been dividing U.S. lawmakers. It is also dividing companies into those who support it and those who do not, as the simplified theory of the proposal – tax imports and exempt export revenue from taxable income – is expected to create clear-cut winners and losers among U.S. businesses.

The last time the Russian Cold War-era spy ship Viktor Leonov (SSV-175), was spotted off the US East Coast on what was its first Atlantic mission since President Trump was elected, was exactly one month ago, when it was located just 30 miles from Groton, Connecticut. Grotton is also known as the "home of the submarine force" and is the primary east coast submarine base for the US.

While it is now virtually assured (odds are 95% according to the CME) that the Fed will announce a 25 bps rate hike today following an unprecedented attempt to reprice the Fed Funds market over the past month by Fed speakers - recall that as recently as three weeks ago, nobody expected a March move by the FOMC - what traders and analysts will be focused on today are hints for the future of the Fed's rate hike moves.