Sterling reversed some of this week’s gain as Brexit optimism has now turned into cautiousness. UK Prime Minister Theresa May will hold a Cabinet meeting shortly to secure support for her agreement with the EU. And she plan to issue Commons statement after that. EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier also plans to make a statement today on the status, and hopefully, he would declare “decisive progress” for a November EU summit. The could be some more volatility in the pound in the upcoming hours.
For now, New Zealand Dollar remains the strongest one for today, followed by Canadian Dollar and then US Dollar. WTI crude oil dipped to as low as 54.84 but it’s now back above 56. The recovery is giving Canadian a breath but that could be temporary. Meanwhile, Swiss Franc is trading as the weakest one, followed by Australian Dollar and then Sterling.
Economic data released today saw US CPI and core CPI stalled at 2.4% yoy and 1.9% yoy respectively. German GDP and Japan GDP contracted in Q3 and both were attributed to global trade tensions. US CPI will be the next focus.
In European markets, major indices are trading mildly softer today. At the time of writing:
- FTSE is down -0.02%
- DAX is down -0.34%
- CAC is down -0.42%
- German 10 year yield drops -0.018 to 0.396
- Italian 10 year yield is up 0.043 at 3.490. German-Italian spread is now at 310. That came after Italy refused to change its 2019 deficit target in the resubmitted plan to EU.
Earlier in Asia
- Nikkei closed up 0.16%
- But Hong Kong HSI dropped -0.54%
- China Shanghai SSE dropped -0.85%
- Singapore Strait Times dropped -0.34%
- Japan 10 year JGB yield dropped -0.0077 to 0.108. We haven’t seen it below 0.11 for a while.
