United States

As we first documented last week in "Mega-Bears Smell Blood As Mall REITs Tumble" and as Bloomberg followed up yesterday, looking at CMBS on the Mall REIT space, many have set their sights on mall REITs as the "next big short." However, an obvious question that has emerged is whether it is too late to go all in on this particular short, or whether as some have suggested, the bottom is in.  “The short feels crowded to us,” said Matthew Weinstein, principal at Axonic Capital, a hedge fund that specializes in structured products.

Conceived several years ago, "buy the (fucking) dip" was a joke among traders seeking to explain the market's nearly-instant upward mean reversion, which as we have alleged since 2009, has been pushed higher by central bank policy and various HFT strats. Since then it has, sadly, become perhaps the only "explanation" for the behavior of the most bizarre market traders have ever encountered.

Luckily, the buy the dip quote-unquote "market" may be about to end, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, if Bank of America is right.

SUPPORT YOUR WEBSITE WWW.PAULCRAIGROBERTS.ORG

Federal Courts Say Foreigners, Not US Citizens, Are Entitled To Due Process

Paul Craig Roberts

The US Constitution applies to US citizens, and the amendments known as the Bill of Rights guarantee due process as a protection of US citizens’ civil liberties. That’s the theory but not the practice.

FIAT Drainage Has Begun

Vince Lanci for MarketSlant.com

Gold will meet head winds as the world continues to hedge most of its  uncertainty with flights to the USD. Unless that uncertainty abates, it must in the end spread all the way to the US. This will happen regardless of what you think of Trump's policies. Trump may accelerate or slow the inevitable. But Government can only slow or speed up market clearing events. They cannot stop them. 

One day after South Korea press reported that US special forces, including a Delta Force team and the infamous SEAL Team 6 are participating in local drills, practicing the removal of Kim Jong-un as well as the infiltration and destruction of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction, North Korea threatened the US with "merciless" attacks if an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson, which is currently taking part in joint South Korean drills "infringes on its sovereignty or dignity", Reuters reported on Tuesday.