United States

A day after the EPA announced their probe of Fiat Chrysler's alleged "cheating" over diesel emissions tests, the company now faces criminal charges as the US department of Justice has joined the probe.

As Bloomberg reports, Fiat Chrysler is now also under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department over its alleged failure to disclose software that violated emissions standards, according to people familiar with the matter, another legal hurdle for a company already under criminal scrutiny for its sales practices.

n the last days of the Obama administration, the outgoing president has taken on a surprising urgency in closing "open" cases of alleged fraud, if mostly involving foreign carmakers. Case in point, this week's $4.3 billion settlement with Volkswagen to put the diesel emmisions scandal to rest, and yesterday's unexpected accusation by the EPA that Fiat was likely engaging in a similar scheme to defraud the US government of its true emissions.

In late December, we explained why of all Trump economic proposals , the "border tax adjustment", while most controversial, could have the biggest impact on US assets.

While the mainstream media intrigues with a fallacious and treacherous story about President-elect Donald Trump, thousands of US tanks, armoured vehicles and troops continue to pour into Europe by the hour. The story put together by a security company belonging to a British ex-MI6 operative portrays Trump as a sexually deviant blackmailed Russian double agent. A disturbing report from the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation warns of a plot by the U.S.

European shares rose as Fiat rebounded on hopes concerns about parallel to Volkswagen are overblown, Asian stocks were little as Chinese shares fell to the lowest level of 2017 after poor export data, and U.S. equity-index futures rose ahead of a deluge of bank earnings. The dollar is headed for a weekly loss and gold trades at the highest price in almost two months.