MarketWatch/Howard Gold/06-07-17
While the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite index hit all-time highs (again) last week and with volatility hovering near a 24-year low, Secretary of Defense James Mattis gave an underreported speech that should cause investors to rethink their complacency.
In an address to a security conference in Singapore, the retired Marine Corps general who headed Central Command from 2010 to 2013 called North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear program a “clear and present danger” and an “urgent military threat.”
By my reading, that ratchets up the already sharp war of words between the Trump administration and North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said failure to control North Korea’s accelerated testing of missiles and nuclear weapons could have “catastrophic consequences.” In April, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the president’s national security adviser, said the problem of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is “coming to a head” and that it poses a “grave threat” to the U.S. and its allies.
