United States

While the US political and financial establishment has been firmly opposed to a Trump presidency, an unexpected supporter for the presumptive GOP candidate has emerged in Russia, where the head of the Russian Upper House Committee for Foreign Relations, Konstantin Kosachev, said that a victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential elections would provide the "shake up" Washington needs and could be the catalyst to reverse the rapidly deteriorating trend in US-Russian relations.

Just yesterday, when looking at the latest sudden drop in the US employment, JPM warned that as a result of the dramatic downshifting in the US economy, the bank's recession indicator had just hit a new cycle high of 36%.

It's no secret that the United States Spends more on its military than any other country in the world by far. To help understand the context of just how massive the the US spending is, the following video from howmuch.net shows each country's share of of total military spending for the last 25 years (1990-2015).

At least until yesterday's abysmal jobs report, there was - just like last December - a renewed sense of optimism that just because the Fed had gotten surprisingly hawkish in recent weeks (just like it did in November) starting with the FOMC minutes, passing through the speeches of numerous Fed presidents, and culminating with last Friday's Janet Yellen appearance, that the US economy was once again set for a major rebound, leading to a substantial repricing higher in rate hike odds which was also coupled with a boost in risk sentiment.

Washington has asked Moscow not to conduct airstrikes against Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, otherwise known as al-Nusra Front Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reported that the US are worried that members of the “moderate opposition” could also be hit.