United States

While much has been said about the impact on the dollar from the proposed Border Tax Adjustment, which may or may not be implemented depending on what Trump says/tweets on any given day (and as a reminder, there has already been a loud outcry against it by powerful lobby groups, including the Kochs, as a result of the expected decimation of US retailers should BTA be implemented) little has been said about how it could impact US commodity production in general, and oil in particular.

Perhaps reports of the Trumpflation rally's death have been somewhat exaggerated in the past few days. After RBC pointed out yesterday that equity generalists are "increasingly uncomfortable with reflation trades", this morning we have seen the latest violent inversion in this theme.

According to a new Reuters / Ipsos poll, a record number of disaffected, Hillary-supporting Californians now support secession from the United States because they're just so "triggered" by Trump's victory.  If successful, California would become the single largest "safe space" in the world.

Per the poll, 1 in every 3 Californians now support a "peaceful withdrawal from the union," which is a substantial increase from the 20% who favored such a withdrawal the last time a similar poll was conducted in 2014. 

Via GEFIRA,

US-centric media are reporting that Japan has become the biggest holder of the US treasuries, surpassing China last month. However, this is true only in regard to single countries. If we consider the European Union member states collectively, then they appear to be the biggest holder of the US treasuries. It has been so almost one year long. Unfortunately, the EU’s holdings are artificially overstated because of some financial havens and they are going in the opposite direction to the trend: up rather than down.

China is wasting no time to project power in a world in which it believes Donald Trump's "America First" doctrine has created a "superpower vacuum."

One day after a senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday that Beijing is prepared to "assume a role of world leadership if others step back from that position" after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged in his first speech to put “America first”, Beijing has reportedly deployed an advanced Dongfeng-41 ICBM system in Heilongjiang Province, which borders with Russia.