Morning Update – 31/08/2017 – by Arjun Lakhanpal

Morning all.. Wall St nudged a little higher again with the S&P up 0.46% after oil stocks had taken a hit earlier dragging stocks lower but oil rallied and calmed nerves, whilst the dollar held gains. USDJPY made a high of 110.63 in Asia, which helped the rally in the Nikkei which closed up 0.7%. EURGBP recovered some losses as UK PM May: wants to stay on as Tory leader and fight next election! At the same time Japan PM Abe: UK is a very important base for Japanese manufacturing in Europe; has trust in UK economy after Brexit.. UK Aug GfK Consumer Conf: -10 vs -13 cons (-12 prev) and UK Aug Lloyds Biz Barometer: 17 vs 30 in July. China data was mixed at best China Aug Manufacturing PMI beat: 51.7 vs 51.3 cons (51.4 prev) whilst China Aug Non-Mfg PMI falls: 53.4 vs 54.5 previous. USD was stronger against most of its peers overnight with JPY and NZD making the biggest moves to the downside, softening 0.3% and 0.4% against the USD respectively. The DXY firmed up a further 0.2% after making gains of 0.7% on Wednesday following strong U.S. data prints. . Crude oil prices steadied however gasoline futures continued their uptrend surpassing the $2 per gallon mark after supplies were hit by hurricane Harvey. We have a heavy data day today and this morning we get French CPI, Spanish retail sales, German unemployment, Italian and EU CPI, along with EU unemployment data.. This before a raft of important US data. Good luck…