Zurich

Here is precisely where the brand new gold vault of the world's biggest bank will be located.

Reports now suggest the string of sex assaults allegedly perpetrated by asylum seekers on New Year's Eve wasn't confined to Germany as women in Switzerland, Austria, and Finland say they experienced similar attacks to those which occurred in Cologne. Germany now says it's prepared to deport those responsible, while little by little, Angela Merkel's rheotric is shifting.

With a new wave of terrorism, mass shootings and unprecedented social violence around the globe now a part of the daily routine for billions of people across both developed and developing nations, one group wants to be certain there is no chance of "close encounters", violent or otherwise, with the peasantry during its upcoming annual boondoggle at the World Economic Forum in Davos. According to Swissinfo, when the world's billionaires land their private jets in the gorgeous Swiss town (which at 1,560 m is also the highest town in Europe) on January 20, they will have up to 5,000 Swiss army troops protecting them.

Santa Claus is cutting it close: after stocks closed down yesterday, and just fractionally red for the year, the jolly old gift-giver (who now has activist investors breathing down his neck) has just three trading days to push if not stocks then the market into the green for the year. And so far, so good, with US equity futures rising by 8 points or 0.4%, on the back of some modest renewed Dollar strength but mostly on oil, which after yesterday's big slide, has managed to stem the decline and is up fractionally, just under $37, along with other commodities if not copper, which falls for second day.

As you may recall, it hasn’t been a good year for Sepp Blatter despite being the recipient of some helicopter money back in July. On Monday, things got immeasurably worse for the 79-year-old, whose 17 year reign at the top of FIFA was suspended in October after Swiss prosecutors opened an investigation into an illicit payment made to European soccer boss Michel Platini in 2011.

With just 72 hours to go until Yellen decides to soak up to $800 billion in liquidity, suddenly we have China and the Emerging Market fracturing, commodities plunging, and junk bonds everywhere desperate to avoid being the next to liquidate.

As the poor get poorer, so the saying goes, the rich get richer; and until recently that was not just true, but apparently mandated so by The Fed. However, the last few months have seen the so-called "1%" appearing to struggle a little in their largesse. As we noted previously, not only are luxury jet values dropping for the first time since 2009, London mansion prices plunging, San Francisco home sales collapsing, fine-wine and diamond prices at 2009 crisis lows, and Sotheby's laying people off, but now, as Bloomberg reports, Swiss watches - the ultimate in luxury extravagance - have seen exports crash by the most since the financial crisis.

• Security jitters drive European investors back to safe havens (Reuters)
• Global Anti-ISIS Alliance Begins to Emerge (WSJ)
• Merkel says cancelling soccer match was 'responsible' decision (Reuters)
• Paris attacker may have had accomplice on journey through Balkans (Reuters)
• Drop Assad demands if you want to unite against Islamic State: Russia to West (Reuters)
• Putin sets up commission to combat terrorism financing (Reuters)

Complacency seemed ready to set back in, with Glencore stock recently rising as high as its recent equity offering price of 125p. And then today we noticed that not only is Glencore's CDS back above 700 bps, the widest it has been in three weeks, but that another mining company has fallen into the market's crosshairs, this time Belgium-based (with Zurich HQ) Nyrstar NV, Europe's largest refined-zinc producer, whose stock crashed the most since its initial public offering in 2007, while it bonds tumbled to a yield of 19%, suggesting a default may be imminent.

With FIFA executive heads falling faster than Glencore stock (with Blatter and Platini most recently and today the entire Kuwait FA), it appeared we had reached some kind of peak debacle.. but no! German newspaper Der Spiegel reports that the German bidding committee created a slush fund in its effort to garner votes from Asian FIFA officials, land the rights to host the 2006 World Cup (which they did by 12 votes to 11).

Hot on the heels of Deutsche Bank's admission that all is not well, Credit Suisse's announcement last night of a major capital raise was greeted by buying pressure from investors. However, reality punched them in the face this morning as CS releasaed its investor day details and, as Bloomberg reports, is looking to raise up to CHF8 billion (almost 50% larger than Goldman Sachs investor survey suggested). Clearly, CS' has a much more massive capital shortfall than expected.

News That Matters

News That Matters

After sliding early in Sunday pre-market trade, overnight US equity futures managed to rebound on the now traditional low-volume levitation from a low of 1938 to just over 1950 at last check, ignoring the biggest single-name blowup story this morning which is the 23% collapse in Volkswagen shares, and instead have piggybacked on what we said was the last Hail Mary for the market: the hope of more QE from either the ECB or the BOJ. Tonight, it was the latter and while Japan's market are closed until Thursday for public holidays, its currency which is the world's preferred carry trade and the primary driver alongside VIX manipulation of the S&P500, has jumped from a low of just over 119 on Friday morning to a high of 120.4, pushing the entire US stock market with it.