Good morning
US data releases will be one hour earlier at 12.30 or 14.00 london time due to the US clock changes that took place at the weekend.
In addition, FX option expiries will be 14.00 london time, not the usual 15.00 london time.
This will be until Sunday 30th when we change our clocks in the UK.
The US dollar ended last week on a bit of a high, GBPUSD had briefly traded down to 1.2890 but in the end closed the week around 1.2915, while EURUSD traded just below 1.0800 for the first time in two weeks before closing around 1.0810. On the open Sunday night USD initially retested those highs but it didn’t take long before we saw a bit of USD weakness returning, as I type GBPUSD is up at 1.2945, EURUSD 1.0840. This leaves GBPEUR at 1.1940, just above support which comes in around 1.1925.
The weaker US dollar seems to have coincided with the fall in US equity markets, indeed if I plot them both on a chart over the past month they look like something of a mirror image.
Plenty of tariff talk given Trumps 2nd April deadline is just a week or so away now. Reports suggest a slight change in the US approach to tariffs, perhaps focussing on the fifteen or so nations who have trade imbalances with US, the ‘dirty 15’ as US Treasury Secretary Bessent calls them. China and EU are among these, although it is clear the situation is pretty fluid and can change at any time.
A lot of focus on Saudi Arabia where US are meeting Russia officials following separate talks between US and Ukraine. There has been a suggestion that China could join the talks which may put more pressure on Russia to find peace. I’ve seen the 20th April being discussed as a date by which US wants to see a truce between Russia and Ukraine but whether that works out remains to be seen. Big question marks over whether Russia wants peace at all, I have also seen a couple of articles that talk of a possible Russian invasion of Lithuania sometime this year. Lithuania are a NATO member and as such any military action against it should, under Article 5, see other NATO members spring to its defence.
Canada’s Carney has called for a snap election to be held on 28th April. His tussels with Trump have made him popular enough that I imagine he believes he can win. It is certainly a time for Canada to be unified amidst the background of Trumps attacks on the country.
In Turkey, Erdogan’s opponent Imamoglu has been jailed, leading to large scale protests that have been dealt with by tear gas and rubber bullets. Imamoglu has been accused of running a criminal organisation. A vote held Sunday was likely to see him elected as CHP’s 2028 presidential nominee to go up against Erdogan, I think he may actually have been the only candidate. If he is convicted he will not be able to run for President. Erdogan shouldn’t run in the 2028 election due to limits of years in office but my money is on him changing the laws to allow him to stay in power. Plenty more to come on this.
Over the weekend Spurs managed a win against AC Milan. It was a match of ‘legends’ featuring players from the past although from what I have seen many of them could still warrant a place in the first team. Meanwhile England’s footballers take to the field again this evening in their second world cup qualifying match, this time against Latvia. England beat Albania on Friday in Tuchel’s first match as manager. A win is always good but the overall performance wasn’t much different to previous England matches.
Today brings EU, UK and US PMIs. UK inflation numbers are out early Wednesday morning, on which day we will also have Chancellor Reeves spring statement. UK retail sales follow Friday. From the US we have GDP Thursday and core PCE Friday.
Have a great day…
- 09.00 EU manufacturing, services PMIs
- 09.30 UK S&P manufacturing, services PMIs
- 13.45 US S&P manufacturing, services PMIs
- 18.00 BoEs Bailey speaks
- 19.10 Feds Barr speaks
- 23.50 BoJ minutes
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