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A roundup of what The Globe and Mail's market strategist Scott Barlow is reading today on the Web

HSBC strategists see a benign global investment environment for 2018 as their base case, but they also published a report detailing the biggest investment risks for the coming year.

These are USD bull run, U.S. dollar funding squeeze, China credit crisis, ECB rate hikes, Japanese inflation, "a no-deal Brexit," property bubbles bursting, trade disruption, Fed policy and a repatriation of investment funds out of emerging markets.

For Canadians, the potential for a real estate price collapse are clearly the most relevant,

"Higher house prices have lifted construction spending and residential investment in many markets over the past few years, but the impact on consumption has been more muted. If one subscribes to Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky's prospect theory, where individuals treat a loss of a certain value with far more disdain than a gain of the same value, falling house prices could easily lead to a sharp slowdown in consumption on top of lower construction spending, and therefore a much slower overall pace of GDP growth."

"@SBarlow_ROB HSBC on risk of global property bubbles bursting in 2018" – (research excerpt) Twitter

Related: "Jennifer Keesmaat: It's time to rethink Canada's housing system" – Maclean's

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Bloomberg notes that pipeline and rail transportation bottlenecks have created a 'serious pain point' for Canadian crude oil prices,

"Canadian crude's discount to West Texas Intermediate futures has widened more than $15 since August as pipeline companies including Enbridge Inc. rationed space amid high Western Canadian inventories. Rail cars struggled to catch up on deliveries after line disruptions over the past two months. "You are in a serious pain point right now," Mike Walls, a Genscape Inc. analyst, said by phone from Boulder, Colorado. "It's the perfect storm of too much supply and not enough capacity.""

"Canadian Oil Collapses Amid Pipeline and Rail Bottleneck" – Bloomberg

"Pipeline bottlenecks push Canadian oil price to deepest discount in 4 years" – CBC

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Merrill Lynch is warning that hedge funds are selling their bullish positions on the Canadian dollar and retail investors may not be far behind,

"hedge funds and real money now appear to be in the process of selling out of extended CAD longs after having been consistent buyers since the summer. We think that this represents an important directional shift. As argued last month, risks remain sharply skewed to the upside in USDCAD over the next few months based largely on supportive US vs. Canada fundamentals…"

"@SBarlow_ROB ML: "Hedge funds have moved decisively to reduce extended CAD longs; real money are lagging and have much further to go" – (research excerpt) Twitter

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All the global energy market headlines are some form of this one from Reuters, "Rising U.S. output pulls oil prices back from session highs".

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Tweet of the Day: "@carlquintanilla "Mining equipment sales are up 80%, Q3, year over year, with years of delayed maintenance finally coming through" - Barclays, initiating $CAT $DE at overweight " – Twitter

Diversion: "The A.V. Club's 20 best TV shows of 2017" – AV Club

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