United States

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.

Having backtracked on its proposal to ban green card holders from 7 mostly Muslim countries from entering the US, it now appears that the Trump admin has softened its stance regarding the admission of refugees, and according to Reuters, citing an internal DHS document, the U.S. government has granted waivers to let 872 refugees into the country this week, despite Trump's executive order on Friday temporarily banning entry of refugees from any country.

The Trump administration just fired the first shot in the US-European currency, and thus trade, wars when Trump's top trade advisor Peter Navarro accused Germany of using a “grossly undervalued” euro to "exploit the US and its EU partners", the FT reported noting the comments are "likely to trigger alarm in Europe’s largest economy." News of the statement sent the EURUSD surging and the dollar tumbling to fresh 2 month lows.

European bonds fell and stocks rose led by banks and retailers as surging inflation data prompted investors to switch into reflationary assets even as speculation about ECB tapering has returned. Asian stocks and US equity futures declined. The Yen and gold advanced after Trump’s firing of the U.S. acting attorney general added to concern over the unpredictability of decisions in the new administration.