It is absurd that Europe pays for 80% of its energy import bill – worth €300 billion a year – in US dollars when only roughly 2% of our energy imports come from the United States,” – JCJ President of the European Commission

It’s not just Europe either. Some of the continent’s largest trade partners are posing the question too. Why pay in Dollars for goods that aren’t related to the United States?

In this graph, we can see that a big part of European imports are actually coming from Russia, which of course would be only too happy to buck the Buck.

This is a direct shove against the US Dollar’s status as the global reserve currency. As with most ideas, the genie doesn’t go back into the bottle. Now that world leaders are becoming more vocal with such questions the Federal Reserve will need to start treading lightly with their policies.

Today’s Highlights

Traditional Markets

After yesterday’s volatility in the US stocks and bonds something funny happened this morning in China.

Wait… back up. Yes, volatility is back up and the major US indexes are back at the Red October lows. In addition, bond yields in Italy are getting a bit out of hand this morning. As expected, the European Union wasn’t too pleased with the Italian government’s spending agenda.

According to analysts, a yield of 4% on the Italian 10-year would be dismal indeed.

Back to China…

Growth figures have come out at their worst levels since the financial crisis as year on year GDP growth was announced at just 6.5%…

That’s not funny though. It’s really the bare minimum that China can afford to report given the circumstances. The funny thing is that Chinese stocks have been flying since the data came out (purple circle) this morning.