by Chris
After drifiting higher immeidately after the painful close on Tuesday, US stock futures went a bright shade of red immediately upon opening back up again at 6:00 pm. EST (~15 minutes ago).
The reason?
I think it’s related to this:
Canada arrests Huawei’s global chief financial officer in Vancouver
DECEMBER 5, 2018
Canada has arrested the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies who is facing extradition to the United States on suspicion she violated U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.
Wanzhou Meng, who is also the deputy chair of Huawei’s board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver at the request of U.S. authorities.
“Wanzhou Meng was arrested in Vancouver on December 1. She is sought for extradition by the United States, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday,” Justice department spokesperson Ian McLeod said in a statement to The Globe and Mail. “As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time. The ban was sought by Ms. Meng.
A Canadian source with knowledge of the arrest said U.S. law enforcement authorities are alleging that Ms. Meng tried to evade the U.S. trade embargo against Iran but provided no further details..
U.S. prosecutors in New York have been investigating whether Huawei violated U.S. sanctions in relation to Iran. News of the probe broke in April 2018 when it was reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Since at least 2016, U.S. authorities have been reviewing Huawei’s alleged shipping of U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws.
The Justice Department probe, first reported by the Wall Street Journal in April, follows a series of U.S. actions aimed at stopping or reducing access by Huawei and Chinese smartphone maker ZTE Corp to the U.S. economy amid allegations the companies could be using their technology to spy on Americans.
The probe is reportedly being run out of the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, the sources said. However, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in April 2018 declined to confirm or deny the existence of the investigation.
Ms. Meng is a rising star at Shenzhen-based Huawei, now the world’s second-largest maker of telecommunications equipment. Reuters reported in 2013 that Ms. Meng served on the board of a HongKong-based Skycom Tech Co. Ltd. that later attempted to sell embargoed Hewitt Packard computer equipment to Iran’s largest mobile-phone operator.
At least 13 pages of the Skycom proposal were marked “Huawei confidential” and carried Huawei’s logo. Huawei has said neither it nor Skycom ultimately provided the HP equipment. HP said it prohibits the sale of its products to Iran.
Trump tweets about being “the tariff man” and stocks sank by the hundreds of points on Tuesday. China came out after market and said “nope, all is well, maybe a few slight misunderstandings, let us clarify…” and futures began to recover.
Then the above.
I have no idea how or why the Imperial US believes it has the right to arrest a foreign national for violating US imposed trade sanctions. Further I have no idea why Canada would cooperate.
This isn’t just any old person they arrested, but the daughter of one of the richest and most powerful men in all of China. She’s powerful in her own right too.
Also…why now?
Very suspicious timing. Is the deep state seeking to torpedo any Trump-China activity? If so, this was a great move. Who ordered this arrest? On what grounds? For now there’s not a lot of information to go on besides this was all (supposedly) concocted out of a US district attorney’s office in Brooklyn NY. Yeah. Right. Is this the Justice Department getting back at Trump?
At any rate, looks like any trade progress has been just rather unceremoniously dumped onto the floor. Hence, this:
For scale those side bars are in increments of 20 SPX points. The -46 point decline is from the prior close on Tuesday, not the propped up heights of Tuesday evening.
Regardless, we now have to see if the US future open limit-down tomorrow, or if they are rescued. It seems possible that could go either way. If “limit down” we get to see how the circuit breakers work.
This is all a complete mess.
Stay tuned.