CL Mainland investors have been opening Hong Kong accounts fast enough to move insurance stocks. AIA is up; Manulife has climbed six percent since earnings, both catching the same current: wealth seeking ground beyond Beijing's latest crackdown. The city registers this most quietly at bank branch counters, where the paperwork is familiar but the calculations behind it are not.-- CL

MB Taiwan fired HIMARS rockets into the strait, a test that 14 Chinese jets and 9 warships acknowledged by circling the island. Congress responded by putting two billion in arms into a defense bill, Japan announced it was stepping up, and everyone continued describing the situation as a security environment. The machinery of deterrence is running visibly and loudly, which usually means deterrence itself is doing less work.-- MB