….Playing chicken with North Korea and stocks fall. How markets respond. Don’t forget tax reform and debt ceiling. Opioid emergency. PPI fell. Retailers slip, mainly. 2016 hottest ever. Financial Review by Sinclair Noe for 08-10-2017   DOW – 204 = 21,844 SPX – 35 = 2438 NAS – 135 = 6216 RUT – 24 = 1372 10 Y – .03 = 2.21% OIL – 1.00 = 48.56 GOLD + 8.90 = 1286.80   The S&P 500 declined 1.45 percent, the worst decline since May. The Nasdaq composite dropped 2.1 percent, with Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Netflix all trading lower. It was a broad-based decline on Wall Street. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), a gauge of fear in the market, soared more than 40 percent to trade at 15.98. It also hit its highest level since May.   President Trump said North Korea would face “fire and fury” if it threatened the United States. North Korea dismissed the warnings as a “load of nonsense”, and outlined plans for a missile strike near the Pacific territory of Guam. And today, Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric, saying his “fire and fury” comments may not have been tough enough, and North Korea should be “very, very nervous”.  China is the largest trading partner with North Korea and China has called for dialogue to end the crisis but has otherwise been pretty quiet. China’s interests do not include a unified Korean Peninsula.  When it comes to assessing global geopolitics like the situation with North Korea, we don’t know how this ...