Former FX trader Richard Breslow has a good piece out on Tuesday.

It's particularly apt given what we saw in FX markets overnight between the RBA minutes, the Riksbank minutes, soft UK inflation data, and of course, the death of the GOP healthcare bill in the US.

All of this would be impossible to trade under “normal” circumstances, but modern markets make it even more fruitless. “Never has it been more obvious that relying solely on electronic trading has fundamentally altered how business is cleared,” Breslow writes, adding that “algorithms and dark pools make it increasingly difficult to follow what's going on.”

Of course the other thing that makes it “increasingly difficult to follow what's going on,” is the fact that in the final analysis, this is all one giant trade on DM central bank accommodation.

What you see in markets is a real-time referendum on what the next move will be, and the task is to look out across assets and synthesize what you're seeing into some kind of coherent whole.

Again, that's made more difficult by the fact that some of the participants in this real-time referendum aren't carbon-based. More below…

Via Bloomberg

This has been a real toughie. The global economy is undoubtedly doing better. But we keep getting numbers that disappoint. There's a cabal of central banks committed to raising rates the world over. Except for those days when it's obvious that continued and open-ended support is vital insurance in these uncertain times. OPEC matters unless you take the view that they're impotent. And of course how can one not vacillate between thinking politics and the legislative process is just plain incompetent or actively malignant. Now gin up some conviction and get out there and trade.