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For all intents and purposes, the National Security Agency has supposedly ceased its bulk collection of metadata from Americans’ phone calls, but read the fine print: nothing is going to change.

Apparently taking a page out of the Spanish government's playbook, Argentines in the Santa Cruz region were surprised yesterday afternoon when at least five bright yellow armored trucks accompanied by heavily armed police paraded through the city. Just weeks after Kirchner's Peroniost government lost the election, and coming after five office fires (destroying banking and economic files from the current regime), local press reports the trucks loaded up with $130 million of banknotes at the airport and driven to banks in the region where outgoing President Kirchner's sister-in-law is governor. Amid comments by the central bank that there are no reserves left, and ongoing discussions of larger banknote denominations and (implied 50% devaluations), one could only speculate where the officially "business-as-usual" transfer of $100s of millions of banknotes will end up.

While the S&P languishes unchanged in 2015, these small groups of overwhelmingly propagandized stocks are up on average over 60%, but with a collective P/E of 45, they are not cheap (and perhaps should remember that when buying this momo, we are all Thanksgiving turkeys).

"If you play with fire, you get burned," apart from if you are an official in the Argentine government it would appear. Just days after Argentina threw out the Peronists, who have ruled almost non-stop in the three decades since the end of military rule, The Ministry of Finance suffered a mysterious fire in its computer center, catastrophically (and coincidentally) destroying the prior-regime's files. This is not the first time a fire has destroyed government records - or second, or third, or even fourth...

• Russia Takes Aim at Turkish Economy Amid Fighter-Jet Spat (WSJ)
• ‘Commercial scale’ oil smuggling into Turkey becomes priority target of anti-ISIS strikes (RT)
• Russia-Turkey Ties Are Headed Into a Deep Freeze (WSJ)
• France signals softer stance on Assad after Russia talks (FT)
• China Calm Shattered as Brokerage Probe Sparks Selloff in Stocks (BBG)
• China Stock Bulls Hit Breaking Point as State Dials Back Support (BBG)
• China's Bond Stresses Mount as Two More Companies Flag Concerns (BBG)

It would not be unprecedented for trendy issues like the F.A.N.G. stocks to continue on to much larger gains... But just ask the Turkeys how this ends.

2015 ends with the market cap of Amazon & Google exceeding that of every single Chinese company in the MSCI China index… the US stock market a mere 107 trading days away from becoming the 2nd longest bull market of all-time, with equity leadership driven by “growth” (longest duration of outperformance ever) & “quality” (at all-time relative high)… and $6trn of negatively-yielding government bonds, $17trn of bonds yielding <1%, and the Fed expected to raise the Fed funds rates for the 1st time since 2006.

There’s an old adage among veteran stock traders that goes something like his, “If I told you the news before it were made public – it’s still a 50/50 bet you would guess the market’s reaction correctly.” That was when the markets had some resemblance of normalcy. Today, normalcy has been replaced with sheer lunacy as to the speculation and interpretations for where these markets go from here.

At this week’s close, the FANG stocks were valued at just under $1.2 trillion, meaning they have gained $450 billion of market cap or 60% during the last 11 months - even as their combined earnings for the September LTM period were up by only 13%. In a word, the gamblers are piling on to the last train out of the station. And that means look out below!

"Avoid places with high concentrations of people in the Brussels region (concerts, major events, train stations and airports, public transport, places of high commercial concentration). Facilitate follow the safety controls Do not post rumors: follow the official information from the authorities and police services In order to enable judicial inquiries to track their progress, no further details will be given."

1.3 million transactions were scrutinized, 3,000 accounts were frozen, and according to Jinhua City Public Security Bureau of Economic Investigation Detachment Vice Captain Zhang Hui, it took 35,000 sheets of paper to print out all of the evidence.

• French, U.S. Troops Enter Mali Hotel as Gunmen Hold Hostages (BBG)
• Top suspect seen on CCTV in metro during Paris attacks (Reuters)
• Paris Attacks’ Alleged Ringleader, Now Dead, Had Slipped Into Europe Unchecked (WSJ)
• Global shares march on as alarm bells ring for metals (Reuters)
• European Stocks Rise With Asian Shares as Zinc, Ringgit Advance (BBG)
• World leaders arrive for summit amid heavy security (Reuters)

Power? Power! You can't handle POWER!!! Most people are still busy counting coin prices....

"Paris prosecutor says Abaaoud was been identified dead at the scene by his fingerprints. His body was found "riddled with impacts."