United States

While many investors and analysts are asking when the Federal Reserve will decide to hike rates again, Citi's Global Head of FX Strategy Steven Englander asks a rather different question: Are investors beginning to price in QE4?

He points out that economic data in the U.S. hasn't been very good (sans unemployment headline data), and that for every one positive data release, a series of disappointments follow. He points to the fact that Citi's economic surprise indicator has been dropping since mid-April as reflecting that reality.

By EconMatters

Some impressive internals for this report are blunted because of OPEC supply finding its way to the United States. The drop in US Oil Production was noteworthy in this report.

By Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

As a result of the dramatic surge in the S&P500 from its February lows, which erased the worst ever start to a year, and nearly regained the all time highs in the US stock market on a combination of a central bank scramble to reflate, the "Shanghai Accord", and the most violent short squeeze in history, coupled with a historic credit injection by China which as we first reported amounted to a record $1 trillion in just the first three months of the year...

... economists have shelved discussions about the threat of a US recession.

That is a mistake.

In an extremely rare occurrence, the U.S. government will not try to squander every single nickel given to it by its taxpayers. As Sputnik News reports, Washington has pulled the funding on a deal that (through the foreign military financing fund) would subsidize roughly $429 million of a $699 million deal to send up to eight F-16s to Pakistan.