Morning Update – 07/11/2017 – by Arjun Lakhanpal

Morning all.. Yet another small move higher on Wall St where the S&P closed up 0.13% and the Nasdaq up 0.33% but it was the Nikkei that out-performed lat night closing up an impressive 1.73% and continues its constant march higher and is at its highest since Jan. 1992. Concerns over the clampdown in Saudi starting to raise some concern. Energy and materials companies benefited from a surge in oil and metals prices. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index closed at the highest level in almost 10 years. The Aussie dollar pulled back after getting a boost as the central bank highlighted confidence in the investment outlook, though left its forecast for growth largely unchanged and kept interest rates on hold. New Zealand’s new, left-of-center government kept the central bank’s existing target for the pace of inflation, spurring an early rally in the kiwi. The government said that the independence of the Reserve Bank won’t change and that it will retain the existing 1-3 percent inflation goal. The new administration also confirmed it’s considering a dual mandate for the central bank of targeting full employment as well as price stability. The Reserve Bank of Australia kept the cash target rate unchanged at 1.5 percent as expected by all economists surveyed. The central bank said that the outlook for non-mining business investment has improved, though inflation is likely to remain low for some time. Not much data this morning but we do get a look at UK Halifax House Price Index and EU Retail sales data. Good luck.