Morning Update – 25/08/2017 – by Arjun Lakhanpal
August 25, 2017Morning all.. Wall St finished in the red last night in a quiet session with the S&P down 0.21% and whilst Asia had a quiet session, a higher USDJPY helped the Nikkei rise by 0.53%. But most markets are on hold for the big speakers today when both Yellen and Draghi are due to speak at Jackson Hole. Janet Yellen kicks off the event with opening remarks at 3pm LDN time, followed by Draghi’s luncheon address at 8pm LDN time. On Saturday around 8.30pm LDN time there has previously a closing panel featuring speeches from two or three G10 central banks and one EM central banker. In the commodities space crude oil received a boost to its pricing as Hurricane Harvey threatens U.S. oil production as it heads towards to Texas coast; Brent crude was up 0.8% trading as $52.44 as a result. Yields in US Treasuries were down 1bp after rising 3bps on Thursday after President Trumps threat to shut down the government if it does not fund the Mexican/U.S. border wall. President Trump is in the news again after he has accused two of the most influential Republic leaders in Congress for the looming crisis over the debt ceiling that needs to be raised in the autumn so that the U.S. does not default on its national debt. Trump tweeted an attack on Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader and Paul Ryan, the House speaker stating “I requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular V.A. Bill (which just passed) for easy approval,”…“They . . . didn’t do it so now we have a big deal with Democrats holding them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval. Could have been so easy-now a mess!”. EUR was unphazed by a sources report in a German paper.. RND News Group (German press, cites unnamed CB officials): ECB GC to discuss terminating bond buying programme at Sept meeting & vote to end strategy at Oct 26 meeting; exit decision to be formulated in light terms & actual process to be drawn out. This morning we get French Consumer confidence data, Spanish & Swedish PPI and German IFO.. Good luck.
