Market Review – Fundamental Perspective 24 October 2017

US equities closed slightly lower yesterday after a relatively light session in terms of volume and the most notable mover was the Japanese stock market which continued to make gains (Nikkei +1.1%) after the weekend’s election affirmed support for the ruling coalition and “Abenomics”.
Asian equity markets are largely higher as of midday local time and FX was generally stable overnight with the exception of NZD which fell by over 1% as PM Ardern outlined plans to give the RBNZ a new unemployment mandate and potentially a currency mandate.
In the UK, PM May told Parliament that important progress was made on Brexit during last week’s EU Summit but such language has been heard before without any finalized details.
GBP outperformed on a relative basis as EURGBP tested back below 0.8900 but GBPUSD failed to break above recent resistance around 1.3230. However, GBP has pared back some of the gains made this morning.
Except for GDP on Wednesday, there are no noteworthy data releases in the coming days and anticipation for next week’s BoE meeting is likely to drive GBP over the next week.
As the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress continues with a focus on higher-quality but slower growth – and potentially less demand for commodities – satellite data show that China’s oil consumption may be understated
Ursa Space Systems satellite data suggest that actual builds in crude stocks occurred at roughly a third of the pace reported by the Chinese government.

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