United States

Saudi Arabia has been an interesting tap-dance for Donald Trump. During the 2016 election, Wikileaks revealed that the house of Saud heavily contributed to the Clinton Foundation, and reports surfaced that they funded 20% of Clinton's campaign. It's clear they had a lot riding on Hillary, some say in the hopes of co-opting the US military into an intervention in Syria to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

Via ConvergEx's Nicholas Colas,

It’s great when a plan comes together. 

 

The recipe for not just today’s rally but the whole move since Election Day is easy.  Take one part new Administration with expansive plans to boost the US economy.  Add in 2 measures of a Federal Reserve confident enough in existing macro growth to boost interest rates.  Add a dollop of money flows.

 

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and a group of his colleagues are calling on the newly appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately investigate how US taxpayer funds are being used by the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support Soros-backed, leftist political groups in several Eastern European countries including Macedonia and Albania.  According to the letter, potentially millions of taxpayer dollars are being funneled through USAID to Soros' Open Society Foundations with the explicit goal of pushing his progressive agenda.

First Goldman, then RBC, and now JPM's top quant.

One month after JPM's head quant Marko Kolanovic warned that volatility is about to return and could lead to "accidents", the market timer also called "Gandalf" elsewhere for his prognosticative skills is out with a fresh warning, predicting "market weakness in the near-term" adding that he is cautious and urging clients to hedge equities.