United States

European, Asian stocks rise as do S&P futures as OPEC ministers gathering in Vienna appeared to be set to announce a deal to cut oil production and prop up global prices. Oil has surged over 7% as a result, also pushing US TSY yields and the dollar higher.

With all eyes on Vienna, where optimism OPEC ministers will salvage a deal to cut production, oil has soared by over 6% reverberating through the financial markets, spurring oil’s biggest gain in two weeks and sending stocks of energy producers and currencies of commodity-exporting nations higher.

Submitted by Brian Cloughley via Strategic-Culture.org,

In the military a rearguard action is defined as ‘a defensive action carried out by a retreating army’ and it is an appropriate description of the desperate scrabbling by NATO to convince the rest of the world — and especially Donald Trump — that its existence is justified.

Having exposed the deepening liquidity crisis in China previously, tonight's action across AsiaPac money-markets suggests - despite US equity record highs - all is very much not well below the surface of the global financial system. Short-term China repo rates have exploded to 20-month highs, Hong Kong Dollar money-market rates have jumped to the highest since May 2009, and Yen basis swaps are showing the most extreme demand for dollars since Lehman...

Angela Merkel has been caught funnelling over $5 million of German taxpayers money to the Clinton Foundation in an underhanded effort to try and influence the recent U.S. elections. Between July and September 2016, Merkel gave millions of German taxpayers money to the Clinton Foundation, according to German newspaper Die Welt. Legalinsurrection.com reports: According to a newly surfaced donor list, the Clinton charity received around $5 million from Germany’s Ministry for Environment.

In the United States "big data" is a major trend that has been adopted by almost every major retailer in an effort to figure out the precise best way to convince American's to buy more stuff they don't need.  In China, "big data" is all about population control.