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We had been wondering for the past few months why SocGen turned surprisingly sour on the S&P in late 2017 and early 2018. We now may know the answer: Societe Generale has cut bonuses for its traders by as much as 25%.

"The Theranos story is an important lesson for Silicon Valley...Innovators must tell investors the truth about what their technology can do today, not just what they hope it might do someday.” - Jina Choi, SEC

If those words bring to mind Tesla, it may not be an accident.

Most investors anticipate increasing trade tensions, with lower equities and lower USD their preferred plays.

In August 2017 we noted Russia's largest private lender was in trouble and required a bailout. Then a month later, a second bank hit the wall and was bailed out. And now, five months later, Russia's central bank is mulling a further capital injection of a trillion rubles to rescue Otkritie and B&N Banks.

WWWBD?

Just weeks after his forced resignation as South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma was charged with corruption on Friday over a $2.5 billion state arms deal, an outcome which Reuters  called "a stunning judicial ruling on a continent where political ‘Big Men’ rarely face their day in court."

"Wall Street’s Wall of Money: record week of $43.3bn equity inflows; equities annualizing blockbuster $717bn inflows, first time equity flows outpacing bonds since 2013"

Li Ka-shing, whose life journey from humble beginnings as a wartime refugee who used to sweep factory floors in Hong Kong for a living to Asia’s biggest business fortunes became the epitome of entrepreneurship that inspired generations of Hongkongers, has announced his retirement.

"No one feels particularly inclined to do anything… and if the whole market is sitting on its hands waiting… then I suspect we’ll be waiting a while longer."

"We have moved our view on stocks from 'buy the dips' to 'sell the rebounds'," said Georg Schuh of Deutsche AM. "I’m not ruling out one final peak in stocks, but we’re getting late in the cycle and we’re starting to see anecdotal evidence that points toward the end of the rally."

The markets today are just as vulnerable to a "run on liquidity," with Goldman Sachs now the smallest of the universal banks followed by Morgan Stanley...

The fine only reinforces the notion that market manipulation will no longer be tolerated...unless, of course, it's perpetrated by China's National Team...

"Never bet against Elon...bitcoin's a hedge against the whole world falling apart... political correctness may have gone a little bit too far."

"This situation is straight out of the neoconservative play book, creating a horrific incident and rushing a government into a confrontation and major policy decision. And these are happening all over the world right now..."

"Where are we in the cycle?" seems to be one of the most commonly-asked questions these days, and with good reason." - JPMorgan.

"I have always viewed competitive devaluation and trade war as a likely endgame of the predicament we find ourselves in. It’s just coming sooner than I expected!"

"Yesterday, Donald Trump appointed CNBC Commentator Larry Kudlow to Gary Cohn’s job as director of the NEC. Kudlow was chief economist of Bear when I joined the firm in the early 1990s."

Markets appear to be running out of reasons to stay optimistic this week. The White House reshuffle and concerns about protectionist US policy agenda is at the heart of that however yesterday’s soft retail sales report also seemed to put the brakes on the ‘Goldilocks’ data scenario.

"A bill that began as a well-intentioned effort to satisfy some perhaps legitimate community bank grievances has instead mushroomed, sparking fears that Washington is paving the way for the next financial meltdown."