Category: zerohedge

Authored by Nouriel Roubini via Project Syndicate,

In February, I warned that any number of foreseeable crises – “white swans” – could trigger a massive global disturbance this year. I noted that:

“… the US and Iran have already had a military confrontation that will likely soon escalate; China is in the grip of a viral outbreak that could become a global pandemic; cyberwarfare is ongoing; major holders of US Treasuries are pursuing diversification strategies; the Democratic presidential primary is exposing rifts in the opposition to Trump and already casting doubt on vote-counting processes; rivalries between the US and four revisionist powers are escalating; and the real-world costs of climate change and other environmental trends are mounting.”

Since February, the COVID-19 outbreak in China did indeed explode into a pandemic, vindicating those of us who warned early on that the coronavirus would have severe consequences for the global economy. Owing to massive stimulus policies, the Greater Recession of 2020 has not become a Greater Depression. But the global economy remains fragile, and even if a V-shaped recovery from highly depressed output and demand were to occur, it might last for only a quarter or two, given the low level of economic activity.

Alternatively, with so much uncertainty, risk aversion and deleveraging on the part of corporations, households, and even entire countries could result in a more anemic U-shaped recovery over time. But if the recent surge of COVID-19 cases in the United States and other countries is not controlled, and if a second wave occurs this fall and winter before a safe and effective vaccine is discovered, the economy would likely experience a W-shaped double-dip recession. And with such deep fragilities in the global economy, one cannot rule out an L-shaped Greater Depression by the middle of the decade.

Moreover, as I predicted in February, the rivalry between the US and four revisionist powers – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – has accelerated in the run-up to November’s US presidential election. There is growing concern that these countries are using cyber warfare to interfere with the election and deepen America’s partisan divisions. A close outcome will almost certainly lead to accusations (by either side) of “election-rigging,” and potentially to civil disorder.

The COVID-19 crisis has also severely exacerbated the Sino-American cold war regarding trade, technology, data, investment, and currency matters. Geopolitical tensions are escalating dangerously in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the East and South China Seas. Even if neither China nor the US wants a military confrontation, increased brinkmanship could lead to a military accident that spins out of control. My warning in February that the Sino-American cold war could turn hot has become more salient since then.

In the Middle East, I expected that Iran would escalate tensions with the US and its allies – especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. But, given Trump’s increasingly evident weakness in the polls, the Iranians have evidently opted for a policy of relative restraint, in the hope that a victory for Joe Biden will lead the US to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal and loosen US sanctions. But, sensing that its strategic window is closing, Israel has reportedly been launching covert attacks on a range of Iranian military and nuclear targets (presumably with the Trump administration’s tacit support). As a result, talk of Middle East-related “October surprise” is increasing.

I also raised concerns that the Trump administration might use sanctions to seize and freeze China’s, Russia’s, and other rivals’ US Treasury holdings, prompting a sell-off of Treasuries as these countries shift to a geopolitically safer asset like gold. This fear, together with the risk that large monetized fiscal deficits will stoke inflation, has since caused a spike in gold prices, which have risen by 23% this year, and by more than 50% since late 2018. The US is indeed weaponizing the greenback, which has recently weakened as US rivals and allies alike seek to diversify away from dollar-denominated assets.

Environmental concerns are also mounting. In East Africa, desertification has created ideal conditions for biblical-scale locust swarms that are destroying crops and livelihoods. Recent research suggests that crop failures due to rising temperatures and desertification will drive hundreds of millions of people from hot tropical zones toward the US, Europe, and other temperate regions in the coming decades. And other recent studies warn that climate “tipping points” such as the collapse of major ice sheets in Antarctica or Greenland could lead to a sudden catastrophic sea-level rise.

The links between climate change and pandemics are also becoming clearer. As humans increasingly encroach on wildlife habitats, they are coming into more frequent contact with bats and other zoonotic disease vectors. And there is growing concern that as the Siberian permafrost melts, long-frozen deadly viruses will resurface and quickly spread around the world like COVID-19 did.

Why are financial markets blissfully ignoring these risks? After falling by 30-40% at the beginning of the pandemic, many equity markets have recovered most of their losses, owing to the massive fiscal-policy response and hopes for an imminent COVID-19 vaccine. The V-shaped recovery in markets indicates that investors are anticipating a V-shaped recovery in the economy.

The problem is that what was true in February remains true today: the economy could still quickly be derailed by another economic, financial, geopolitical, or public-health tail risk, many of which have persisted and, in some cases, grown more acute during the current crisis. Markets are not very good at pricing political and geopolitical – let alone environmental – tail risks, because their probability is difficult to assess.

But, given the developments of the last few months, we should not be surprised if one or more white swans emerge to shake the global economy again before the year is out.

Americans can’t seem to handle wearing masks to stop the coronavirus. Now, imagine if the CDC changed its guidelines to also call for “eye protection” like medical goggles to stop the spread of the virus (and protect your neighbor, as well as yourself).

Well, Dr. Fauci is apparently preparing to do just that.

During an interview with ABC News, Dr. Fauci said Wednesday that he may soon advise Americans to wear ‘eye protection’ to avoid being infected by COVID-19 as deaths along the Sun Belt climb to record highs.

“If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it,” the doctor said, before adding that it’s not universally recommended, “but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can,” he said.

Watch a clip from the interview below

Dr. Anthony Fauci to @DrJAshton: “If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it. It’s not universally recommended, but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can.” https://t.co/SJPZn8fN6F pic.twitter.com/Ml87aBuclI

— ABC News (@ABC) July 29, 2020

Anybody listening to this would probably have a litany of questions for the doctor. But instead of trying to clarify this, he just said that Americans should aim to “protect as many mucosal surfaces as possible”. Very informative, indeed.

Moving on, Dr. Fauci said the pre-enrollment for Moderna’s final clinical trial for a possible COVID-19 vaccine includes 19% black and 19% hispanic participants across 89 sites throughout the country.

“Now we want to get that and even more” because of how the virus has disproportionately affected minority communities with worse outcomes and higher death rates, Dr. Fauci said.

So now clinical trials are potentially being delayed so scientists can pander to the equality warriors: because shouldn’t these vaccines work the same regardless of race?

But circling back to Fauci’s latest recommendation: anybody who has worn a mask with glasses or sunglasses has probably experienced how they fog up repeatedly due to an individuals breath being directed upward. So anybody who follows this advice might find it difficult to see in public. And that could create some serious problems of its own.

And if we’re trying to cover as many mucous membranes as possible, why not simply go all-in?

Brazilian couple wear spacesuits as protection from COVID-19 during stroll
Brazilian couple Tercio Galdino and Alicia Lima were seen donning a spacesuit complete with custom made helmets while taking a stroll on a beach in Rio de Janeiro pic.twitter.com/ADMzv9g8s0

— H24 (@H24News_) July 19, 2020

Despite a growing body of research suggesting that aerosolized particles can linger in the air longer than previously believed, the WHO hasn’t done much to change its guidance:

Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 can occur during medical procedures that generate aerosols (“aerosol generating procedures”).(12) WHO, together with the scientific community, has been actively discussing and evaluating whether SARS-CoV-2 may also spread through aerosols in the absence of aerosol generating procedures, particularly in indoor settings with poor ventilation.

 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Not only is our lifestyle on back-order, so is our sanity.

Yesterday I mentioned our collective inability to make sense of the contradictory messages of the status quo and our own experience. This inability to reconcile completely contradictory messages generates psychosis, an internal breakdown that manifests as a disconnect from reality.

To take one example: we’re constantly bombarded with the message that a four-year college diploma is the essential key to a secure middle-class lifestyle, yet our experience is that millions of college grads are living precariously, burdened by extremes of student loan debt.

Here’s another I discussed yesterday: the status quo hypes the stock market’s near-record highs as “proof” all is well and everything’s getting back to “normal” but our experience is the real economy is in a stumbling free-fall.

And what is that “old normal” everyone is so anxious to return to anyway? How about too busy to be healthy, too addicted to social media to have agency? Or as the writer of Small Family Farms Aren’t the Answer wrote: “In short, we’ve done the most modern-American thing possible: bartered away our quality of life for the freedom to be miserable.”

As for the “new normal,” it’s Extremes of Neofeudalism, Incompetence and Authoritarianism (June 30, 2020).

In other words, to keep us in thrall to an unsustainable status quo, what’s been normalized and institutionalized is social psychosis, breakdown and burnout.

Our experience is shaped by what psychiatrist R.D. Laing identified as the Politics of Experience. While Laing’s initial focus was on family dynamics (Sanity, Madness and the Family: Families of Schizophrenics) and how conflicting demands (contradictory political “necessities”) within a family can trigger a breakdown in children, his insights also apply to society at large.

Laing explores the way our internalized interpretation of experience can be shaped to create uniform beliefs about our society and economy that then lead to norms of behavior that support the political/economic status quo.

Here’s how Laing described the social ramifications in Chapter Four Politics of Experience:

“All those people who seek to control the behavior of large numbers of other people work on the experiences of those other people. Once people can be induced to experience a situation in a similar way, they can be expected to behave in similar ways. Induce people all to want the same thing, hate the same things, feel the same threat, then their behavior is already captive – you have acquired your consumers or your cannon-fodder.”

For Laing, the politics of experience is not just about influencing social behavior; it has an individual, inner consequence as well:

“Our behavior is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things. If our experience is destroyed, our behavior will be destructive. If our experience is destroyed, we have lost our own selves.”

One manifestation of this destruction is the shunting of systemic failure onto the individual. The system itself cannot be seen as a failure, so all failure must be pinned on the individual.

Those of you who have read Survival+ will gain a new perspective on opting out, protected fiefdoms, when belief in the system fades, profound political disunity, plantation-like structures, derealization, radical self-reliance, asymmetric stakes in the game, induced amnesia and other ideas I have presented on the politics of experience over the years.

Contradictory political “necessities” are destroying our internal coherence, our social order and our economy. Not only is our lifestyle on back-order, so is our sanity.

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My recent books:

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
(Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

*  *  *

If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

As one would expect, markets were dominated today by Powell’s words with gold and stocks rising after the FOMC statement:

Powell initially promised The Fed will “do whatever it takes for as long as it takes” and stocks and gold spiked.

Everything was fine until Powell reiterated a statement on the pace of recovery slowing and everything reversed.

But then Powell promised to “adjust forward guidance and asset-buying if needed” and the market assumed that if the recovery is slowing that can only mean MOAR!!!!

And stocks rallied back to their highs with Small Caps dramatically outperforming (as The Dow lagged)…

Expectations were high.. and met for now… but watch the next few days…

“The market was operating under the assumption that the Fed will do whatever it has to do to support the market” and policy makers “didn’t disappoint on that front,” said Phil Toews, chief executive and lead portfolio manager of New York-based Toews Corp., which manages $1.9 billion.

“If markets falter over the coming months, the ability of the Fed to act as a put under the markets will be tested,” Toews said via email; “if markets begin to fall despite the Fed’s bond-buying power, it would be a tipping point that would be a huge sell indicator.”

Despite the sudden spike on Powell’s “slowing” comments, the Dollar ended lower on the day (the 8th down day of the last 9)…

Source: Bloomberg

Spot Gold spiked back up to record highs (Dec Futs near $2000)…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were bid and are now all lower on the week led by the belly of the curve…

Source: Bloomberg

with 10Y Yield dropping back to its 2nd lowest yield close in history…

Source: Bloomberg

And 5Y yields tumbled to new record low…

Source: Bloomberg

And real rates plunged to record lows (-96bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

While stocks remain near record highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were all higher on the day, extending the week’s gains…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold surged as real yields tumbled…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, it’s all about fun-durr-mentals, right?

 

Source: Bloomberg

Oh and there’s this…

Pretty much sums it all up really.

Value investors swear by fundamentals, news and data (or at least they used to before the Fed took over markets). To technicians, there is nothing sexier than a strategically planted squiggle or a trendline breaching some other line.

Case in point, in his latest daily note, BofA’s chief technician Paul Ciana writes that “there is nothing better than a candle chart with a variety of technical indicators, lines, Fibonacci’s, technical patterns, wave counts and even more drawn on it, in my view. Sometimes the more the better as I evaluate them all and take a weight of evidence approach to conclude a bullish or bearish bias. But it can be a lot, maybe too much.”

It gets better. To explain how he “gets to the bottom” of what a chart is saying, Ciana writes that he spends “part of our time evaluating weekly line charts with just a few trend lines on them. We call this the “forest for the trees” approach.” It’s also known as massaging and goalseeking the chart until it shows whatever you want it to show.

It is simple and bigger picture. Just a line chart with some trend lines and maybe a 200 week average. Why? To neutralize the noise. During the week investor actions discount available information into price that causes price to swing. We like to know where it ends because when markets close for the week the battle is over. The weekly close shows if something changed and who the winner is. In this report we recap trend lines and highlight 5 weekly chart lines to know.

Good-natured humor at Ciana’s (and all technicians’) expense aside, we do want to highlight what Ciana has found in his latest trek through the charts, namely 5 trendlines and major levels that appear to be “under siege”, focusing on the Euro, DXY, BBDXY, Gold, and USDJPY.

Euro: 12 year old downtrend line narrowly broken

Ending the third week of July, euro closed at 1.1656 which is above its weekly closing resistance line at 1.1644 (a small bullish breakout). An overbought correction is due in August/September where an uptrend may resume after. To further confirm this break, look for a second weekly close above 1.1644 and/or a weekly close above 1.1760 which is more than 1% above this trend line. If this occurs then it supports the bullish evidence and to buy a forthcoming Aug/Sept dip.

DXY: Getting close to a breakdown

The DXY has declined near its 10 year support lines at 93.08-93.18. Ending the third week of July the DXY closed at 94.43, so no breakdown yet. For now we wait and see. Given the characteristics of a trend line, this line was only touched twice so it is not an exemplary line like those in the primer section of this report. We watch it because on a candle chart the lows connect better to including the 2018 lows. We also see risk of a big double top forming that implies downside to the Fibonacci retracements in the 87s and 83s is possible.

BBDXY: Marginal bearish breakdown

Ending the third week of July the BBDXY closed at 1188 and its support line was at 1191. This is a small bearish breakdown. A second weekly close below 1191 and/or a weekly close below 1180 (1% below line) increases conviction in the break. Should this be true, the next medium term support is the Fibonacci retracement at 1144 and the 2018 lows at 1120.

Gold: Highest weekly close on record, now what?

Ending the third week of July Gold closed at a record of $1897. This was above the prior closing high in 2011 of 1874. That’s a +1% break = Still bullish and still buy dips. At the risk of over simplifying, a chart that is smiling should be bought and held.  Our target range from over a year ago is $2114-2296 however using the below we can calculate a few more levels to be aware of including 2379 and possibly 2691.

$/JPY: 106 sort of mattered but not as much as this

On a daily candle chart, yes the break of 106 mattered. However the two weekly closing lows of 105.39 are what matter more for the bigger picture. This was the same weekly closing value in March 2020 and in August 2019. In March 2018 it closed at 104.74. So there is still some support nearby and is probably why $/JPY hasn’t sold off more from a technical view on the break of 106. A descending triangle pattern (unconfirmed until a break happens) implies a break lower could follow with 100.72 and 94.85 possible.

Authored by GQ Pan via The Epoch Times,

The public school district in Minneapolis, after cutting their ties with the city’s police in early June, has quietly sought to replace contracted school resource officers (SROs) with privately hired security guards – a move that enraged the teachers union, which wants no policing on campus at all.

In the wake of the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police officers, the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) board of education voted unanimously to terminate its contract with the Minneapolis Police Department, saying it “cannot continue to be in partnership with an organization that has the culture of violence and racism.” As the new school year approaches, however, the MPS found itself in need of a security force to keep campuses safe.

According to an online job posting, the MPS plans to pay between $65,695 to $85,790 for 11 “public safety support specialists (PSSS).” The PSSS won’t be police officers, but are required to have law enforcement degrees and experience. Their list of responsibilities include: breaking up fights, event security, and providing “a bridge between in-school intervention and law enforcement.”

The MPS hiring effort soon came to the notice of Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), reported local newspaper City Pages. The MFT, which played an active role in prompting the district to cut ties with the police, was furious that it had not been consulted about the plan.

“When we said we didn’t want any more SROs, any more police officers in our buildings, we did not mean, ‘hire a bunch of private security officers and put them in our buildings,’” MFT President Greta Callahan told City Pages.

More than 100 Minneapolis teachers and families participated in a “No Cops In Our Schools” rally on July 19 outside the district headquarters to protest against what they called “rent-a-cops.”

In response, the MPS said they were hiring for PSSS on “an accelerated schedule to ensure we have staff onboard and extensively trained” before Aug. 18, the first day of school.

“Unfortunately, because we used an existing job description to allow us to meet our August 18 deadline, the job description did mention a background in law enforcement,” the district explained in a statement, adding that most of applicants they had interviewed don’t have that experience.

“The most important experience required for the position is understanding and making authentic connections with students so that students do not feel another adult is being brought in to control them,” the district said.

The deaths of George Floyd has caused many school districts to consider stop contracting with local police departments or dismantling their own campus police forces. Protesters in several major cities, notably Chicago, Denver, and Portland, have demanded the removal of resource officers from schools.

Jerry David Thompson was arraigned on Tuesday in Superior Court in Hartford, charged with “using a samurai sword to decapitate his landlord” this weekend. He was ordered to be held in lieu of $2 million in bail.

Thompson is refusing to speak with police and is claiming he is a sovereign citizen, according to the Hartford Courant. He has also reportedly refused to speak with a public defender and is not being represented by an attorney. His case was continued to August 18 by presiding Judge Ann Lynch. 

Thompson was identified as a suspect by friends of victim Victor King, who had rented him a room. The two were said to have had a dispute about Thompson not paying his rent when Thompson threatened King with the sword.

King went to Hartford Police on Saturday about the threats, one day before he was killed. He told police Thompson had been “waving the sword” at him.

On Sunday, King’s friends called the police when they couldn’t reach him. Sunday afternoon, police forced their way into King’s home, only to find “a lot of blood and King’s badly slashed body covered in bedding.”

Thompson was quickly tracked by police to the city’s North End, where he was apprehended and brought to the police station. Once in custody, he refused to say anything. He wrote on a sheet of paper “paper in glove compart in Jeep is all you need.”

The paperwork suggested that Thompson viewed himself as a sovereign citizen and not subject to the law.

King was a retiree who previously worked for Travelers and was “an accomplished bridge player”. “He was very good at it. Very good at teaching others to play it. Just a kind and gentle person whose first love was bridge,” the victim’s cousin said.

Paul Linxwiler, executive editor of the Bridge Bulletin, called King a Grand Life Master, “which is our highest rank,” according to the NY Post. To get to that rank, “you have to play a lot…and you have to be good, too,” he said. “He was known as a top player from New England.” 

Thompson has had previous convictions for assault and robbery. 

Yes, it’s a completely meaningless and arbitrary comparisons but some are asking: can/will the price of gold surpass the value of the S&P?

As BMO chief economist Douglas Porter writes, amid all the recent excitement over the new all-time high for gold prices, spare a thought for the humble S&P 500.

“Fully aware that this is like comparing apples to orangutans, but consider the level of the S&P index to gold prices over the past 30 years. On July 20 1990, those many years ago, gold changed hands at just over US$361 the ounce, while the S&P 500 finished the day at 361.”

Since then, the annualized rise in gold has been 5.8%, while the S&P 500 is up 7.6% per year (plus dividends). That has left the S&P about 66% above gold prices now (which of course ignores the fact that central banks have been doing everything they can to boost the “wealth effect” of global stocks while keeping gold prices as low as possible). Finally, as Porter shows in the chart below, “the last time these two prices crossed paths was April 9, 2013 (at around the 1570 mark for both).”

Separately, BMO senior economist Sarah Howcroft does not expect gold to surpass the S&P any time soon:

While we expect gold and silver to remain well supported over the next 18 months as global monetary conditions remain accommodative, any slight rebound in U.S. yields or the dollar could trigger a modest pullback in prices. Conversely, a further deterioration in U.S./China relations or failure to contain regional COVID-19 outbreaks could push gold above $2,000.

That said – apples to orangutans and all – one wonder can one ounce of gold, currently trading at $1,961 surpass one unit of the S&P500, currently at 3,247? And speaking of totally arbitrary comparisons, just this past week one bitcoin – currently trading just around $11,000 – surpassed the Nasdaq once again…

 

As the English-language science and financial press focuses on vaccine candidates created by Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech or AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, we’ve seen surprisingly little reported about a Russian vaccine candidate that has already been administered to members of the Russian business elite.

With Moderna reportedly planning to charge an outrageous $60 per course for its experimental vaccine candidate, Russia is hoping to beat its western rivals to the punch by registering the coronavirus vaccine by Aug. 10-12, clearing the way for Russia to secure the mantle of winning the first official approval of a vaccine targeting SARS-CoV-2.

After winning approval, the vaccine developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute (bolstered by financing from the Russian government) could be approved for civilian use within 7 days.

Here’s more from Bloomberg:

The drug developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute and the Russian Direct Investment Fund may be approved for civilian use within three to seven days of registration by regulators, according to a person familiar with the process, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

The Gamaleya vaccine is expected to get conditional registration in August, meaning it will still need to conduct trials on another 1,600 people, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said in a televised meeting of officials with President Vladimir Putin Wednesday. Production should begin in September, she said.

“The key requirements for a vaccine are its proven effectiveness and safety so everything needs to be done very carefully and accurately,” Putin said at the end of the meeting. “Our confidence in the vaccine must be absolute.”

To be sure, the speed with which the vaccine has been developed, and the opacity surrounding the research, have raised questions abroad. But not enough to stop Phase 3 trials that are set to begin next week in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Russia has the fourth-largest outbreak in the world, after the US, Brazil and India. With more than 800,000 confirmed cases.

While the vaccine has been touted by its developers as safe and potentially the first to reach the public, the data hasn’t been published and the speed with which developers are moving has raised questions in other countries. Gamaleya is scheduled to begin Phase 3 trials next week in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Russia has more than 800,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the fourth-most in the world. While the number of new daily infections is down by more than half from its peak, Putin has reportedly criticized some regions of the country for reopening too quickly.

“The situation remains difficult and can, as they say, swing in any direction,” Putin said. “There is no reason for complacency, to relax, to forget about the recommendations of doctors.”

Researchers and pharmaceutical companies in other countries including the US, the UK, Japan and China are also racing to develop vaccines. And both the US and the UK have accused Russia for sending shadowy state-backed hackers to infiltrate vaccine research in the UK and the US. Despite the risks, rushing a product to market would be a great PR victory for Putin, whose popularity has reportedly been sagging due to the outbreak, which his government failed to prevent.

The Russian vaccine will be provided to health professionals before clinical trials are complete, according to the Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko. The ministry doesn’t expect vaccine to be widely available until late in the year.

As Pantheon’s Ian Shepherdson notes:

“The Fed made no policy changes, as expected, and the key language of the statement is unchanged… In short, this is a holding operation, pending developments with both the virus itself and fiscal policy.”

Which is perhaps worrisome as we noted ahead of the FOMC statement that BofA ominously warns, “perception that the Fed is out of ammo could cause a reassessment of the Fed “put” and support USD via lower risk assets.”

For now stocks are unmoved but the action remains in currency markets as the dollar accelerates lower on Fed promises to “use all tools” and extends its global bailout swap lines.

This has helped sparked further gains in gold…

Will Powell spoil the party further?