Morning Update – 18/08/2017 – by Arjun Lakhanpal

Morning all.. Wall St took a hit last night and the usual rally into the close didn’t happen with the S&P closing down over 1.5% (its second-biggest drop for 2017) and the NASDAQ nearly 2%. This nervousness spilled into Asia with the Nikkei closing down 1.2%and HK down 0.54% while Australian bonds rose with the yen as investors sought havens.. Unease over the turmoil in Washington and the deadly terror incidents in Spain have driven markets down. Speculation surfaced at one point that Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. president who’s Trump’s top economic adviser and has been a figure of assurance to investors in an unorthodox White House, might resign. Markets were calmed temporarily on reports that Cohn, who has been leading efforts on tax reform, would stay. EUR rebounded as the dollar weakened. EUR had dropped as minutes from the region’s last central bank meeting revealed worries among officials that the currency could overshoot. Gold was among the best-performing metals, and zinc traded near a 10-year high as commodities rallied on a lower USD. The USD weakened against most of its peers with JPY firming to 109.28 overnight. Investors moved to  safe haven assets with yields on the US 10-year treasuries continuing to fall as equities weakened; the yield was down 2.3bps trading at 2.199%. FX markets were generally confined to rather tight ranges but EURJPY and GBPJPY traded lower. This morning we get very little data of note..EU Current account data which is not likely to impact. Good luck…