Chinese Checkers.

Wednesday was all about China.

“China?! China.”

 

U.S. investors woke up to news that Beijing is considering “slowing or halting” Treasury purchases and the knee-jerk reaction was visible everywhere. Yields spiked (only to completely retrace as Treasurys pared losses following a solid 10Y auction):

10Y

Gold rose:

Gold

The dollar careened lower and EURUSD jumped (one natural way for the Chinese to diversify would be to increase their allocation of euro debt):

Dollar

And futs dipped:

Futs

You’ll note that China may be reminding Trump that they have a way to fight back in the event the administration gets “tough” on trade. For more on what very well could be going on in the minds of the Politburo, see here.

But as indicated in the ES chart above, the China headlines weren’t the only notable news on Wednesday. Late in the session, we got this:

  • CANADA IS SAID INCREASINGLY CONVINCED US LEAVING NAFTA: REUTERS

Well needless to say, that weighed on the peso and the loonie:

NAFTA

Which in turn changed the decision calculus for Poloz:

But then we got this:

  • WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL: NO CHANGE IN TRUMP’S POSITION ON NAFTA

Which I suppose means Trump thinks this about Trudeau:

Donald Trump GIF

GM had a helluva hard time figuring that schizophrenic shit out:

GM

Oil chopped around after the EIA number (large draw, but meager compared to API) but ultimately ended up higher, extending a run that has crude sitting at a more than three-year peak:

WTI

European shares closed lower after failing to recover from declines seen around the China headline:

Europe

Oh, and the Hang Seng has risen for 12 straight sessions. That would be the longest streak since it was launched in 1969:

HangSeng

Finally, here’s the President of the United States suggesting that he is literally going to change the libel laws so he can sue people for negative press coverage:

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2 thoughts on “Chinese Checkers.

  1. Remember when Donald Trump accused the father of Ted Cruz of collusion with Lee Harvey Oswald in regards to the JFK assassination based only on a black-and-white photograph in a tabloid? Can we please backdate these new libel laws? Plenty of work to do

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