not when oil prices are down 35% from their recent high; and not when US Treasury yields are surging, and the 5s-10s curve is close to inverting even before the Fed meeting this week. No, that is all very much risk off, even as some will cling to the hope that China slashing banks' reserve requirement ratios and rates, even as the Fed hikes, and despite its surprise failure to cut 10bp to 2.75% today as expected, is good news.

What I mean that the boardgame "Risk" is on, which I used as a visual analogy of where geoeconomics would end up once neoliberal free trade failed in 2017's 'The Great Game of Global Trade'. To say it was not a popular call at the time is an understatement: but here we are.

Yesterday's key meeting between the US and China in Rome obviously did not go well. Pre-meeting, I was informed the article doing the rounds from a Chinese academic saying Beijing should dump Russia for the West was banned from circulation in China. The official US read-out was bare bones, which is the diplomatic practice when there is nothing positive to say. Worse, US intelligence has told allies that Russia asked China for surface-to-air missiles, drones, armoured vehicles, logistics vehicles, and intelligence-related equipment – and that China responded positively.