United States

Just as oil was set to test session lows after another massive oil build, sending US crude inventories to all time highs, many were wondering if the same exact algos that struck for the past weeks, would reappear sending oil surging on negative data would hit again. The answer: a resounding yes.

While it is difficult to explain why oil prices are rising, the rally it's coming on very strong volume as someone clearly thinks it's time to buy crude, again, and doing so with gusto.

Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Oil prices have traded reliably in the $50s per barrel since OPEC agreed to cut production last November, but having failed to break through a ceiling in the upper-$50s, crude prices are in danger of falling back again.

The global "risk on" melt-up continues.

After a modestly hawkish Yellen warned that every meeting is live, and refused to take March off the table, sending the dollar and yield higher and the S&P to fresh record highs, world stocks rose hitting a 21-month high on Wednesday with the dollar rising for the 11th straight day, the longest positive streak since July 2015.

Five hundred US troops and tanks have arrived in Romania in preparation for a showdown with Russia.  The troops arrived in a Romanian Black Sea port on Tuesday as part of a move to help support NATO deal with so-called “Russian aggression.” Presstv.com reports: US Ambassador Hans G. Klemm said the troops would be stationed in an airbase in the country’s east on a rotating basis.

Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Our current and past strategies can no longer hold. We are facing environments that the masters of war never foresaw. We are facing a threat that requires us to redefine doctrine and the force in radically new and different ways. The future army will confront a highly sophisticated urban-centric threat that will require that urban operations become the core requirement for the future land-force. The threat is clear. Our direction remains to be defined. The future is urban.”