The Nasdaq outperformed, hitting (another) record ahead of some “bigly” earnings this week.
Oil got a lift from Saudi jawboning in St. Petersburg:
This is what did it, from Al–Falih:
- Exports need to be incorporated in oil-cuts monitoring, Saudis are capping exports at 6.6m b/d
“This is all news that’s been out there before, but he came out and threw that out there at a pretty opportune time,” Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho remarked.
The dollar regained a little footing, but the day was largely uneventful and the greenback is still sitting near a 14-month low ahead of the Fed.
European shares were mixed with a bias towards “lower”, as the market is still grappling with weakness in automakers tied to an unfolding collusion scandal and a stronger euro.
In short, it’s been a lackluster couple of sessions:
As Bloomberg notes, European shares are now lagging global equities by the most in nine months:
The euro did take a breather today, falling against all of its G-10 peers except for the kiwi after some mehhh PMI data that suggested growth kicked off Q3 at the weakest pace in something like six months:
Meanwhile, the loonie hit a fresh 14-month high on the heels of strong wholesale sales data. “Data from wholesalers this morning confirmed one thing: it was another strong month for Canadian GDP in May,” Nick Exarhos, economist at CIBC said.
Scotiabank is more cautious. “The question for investors from here is really how much more tightening can be factored in to the outlook at this point?” the bank’s Shaun Osborne asked this morning.
Gold hit a one-month high as sentiment around the dollar continues to deteriorate and political concerns ensure there’s a safe haven bid.
“Dollar weakness and U.S. political concerns are lending support to gold,” Chinese brokerage Guotai Junan Futures said in a Monday note, stating the obvious.
To be clear, emerging markets don’t care about any of the above as long as DM central banks don’t try to normalize too quickly:
Of course the circus continued in Washington with Trump firing off a series of unhinged tweets and reports circulating that Jeff Sessions may be on the way out as AG.
Jared Kushner spoke for the first time in his life, and swore he hasn’t committed any treason and that as far as he knows, no one else in the Trump White House has either.
The President closed out the day by railing against anyone and everyone on healthcare, set against a backdrop of smiling children.
So basically, just another day in Washington anno 2017.
