United States

U.S. Army and NATO Generals have warned that the planet is teetering on the brink of World War 3 between the U.S. and Russia.  In a recent interview for Time magazine, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev echoed recent warnings by military chiefs, saying that the tensions between NATO and Russia indicate that a nuclear war is “imminent”. “More troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers are being brought to Europe. NATO and Russian forces and weapons that used to be deployed at a distance are now placed closer to each other, as if to shoot point-blank.

Iran is planning to ditch the use of the American currency after US President Donald Trump issued a travel ban on seven countries, including the Islamic Republic The Central Bank of Iran is seeking to replace the dollar with a new common foreign currency or use a basket of currencies in all official financial and foreign exchange reports. The move had already been in the offing but appears to have been expedited after Washington included Iran in a list of seven nations that are banned from entering the United States.

Seemingly following the proposals of Bill Clinton (and Ron Paul), The Washington Post reports that a leaked document shows the Trump administration is planning to crackdown on current, and would-be, immigrants who are likely to require public assistance.

After Bill Clinton received a standing ovation for suggesting crackdown on immigrant welfare...

"We are a nation of immigrants.. but we are a nation of laws"

 

Having already succeeded in delaying the confirmation of Tom Price and Steven Mnuchin, when Democrats boycotted a committee vote which had a minimum quorum requirement, moments ago Senate Democrats succeeded in stalling - if only temporarily - another confirmation when they used a procedural move on Tuesday afternoon to stall committee vote, this time on Jeff Sessions' nomination to become US Attorney General amid last night's controversy in which Trump fired the acting Attorney General Sally Yates for insubordination.

With the S&P500 ending January on the back foot, more pain may be in store for markets in February.

This is the observation of BofA's chief technician Stephen Suttmeyer, who provides several danger signals why bulls may want to be particularly cautious ahead of the coming months.

As he notes, the post-Presidential Election S&P 500 rally has done better than the post-Brexit rally, but there are warning signs moving into February just as there were coming off the mid-August post-Brexit S&P 500 peak.