This Week In Markets 25th - 29th October 2021 (Global Update)

Okay, very good morning. It is Monday, 25th of October. Hope you had a great weekend, or at least better than for any Man United supporter. But yeah, going straight into the, the briefing and what I'm going to cover for the week ahead. Going to talk about a COVID update on the global perspective, US spending, and some comments over the weekend about how they progressing in their negotiations on Capitol Hill. We're going to talk about OPEC comments, going to talk about Brexit, what's the latest on the Northern Ireland Protocol. We've also got a whole ton of US major mega-cap tech earnings coming out this week, so what days and what can we expect from those. We've also had HSBC report this morning, and then a look at the week ahead. We've got things like US GDP, we've got the UK budget coming out on Wednesday, you've got the ECB interest rate meeting on Thursday, and you've got the flash PMIs coming out on Friday. So super busy week ahead, but a quick flavor of the charts this morning, and the DXY is a touch softer. So both major pairs slightly elevated, as you can see in the top right, technically just getting a bit of a further extension on the breakthrough, some of the relative range highs that we were trading here. You've seen the euro from last week. Equity indices, uh, generally positive movement seen overnight in the APAC session. Gold pretty flat overall as to, uh, T-notes, and then oil continues to move to the upside. So So despite these COVID concerns coming out of the likes of China specifically, but also some global challenges being felt at the moment, the fact that OPEC remained pretty committed to just sticking to the plan for the time being, irrespective of the elevated price, continues to support generally crude oil futures. And on the weekly chart, now that we're through $84, which was that target that we've been watching over the last fortnight or so, the next kind of area or stop, I'd say, on the upside would be 85, 87. That would be that high you can see there from around the beginning of October of 2014, and that low that we had in April of '13. Anything above that, more long-term, 90, 74. Sounds crazy that we're talking about 90 again, but here we are. And yeah, what a move we've had really occur from when we printed that low. That was at the peak US COVID outbreak, if you like, that came in the summer. That was when we got down to about $60. And here we are now trading at $84 this morning. And as I said, some OPEC comments that I'll get you up to speed on in a moment. Before I begin, don't forget, if you check out the AmplifyMe.com website, not only can you register for a free simulation in sales trading, market making, asset managing if you're a student, you can also, if you go to the bottom of that web page or if you just search AmplifyMe.com/market-maker, it'll take you to here, which is a daily newsletter we put out for free, written by normally myself, where I deconstruct one of the major market topics of the day with the ambition of making it super simple, interesting, sometimes funny to understand, uh, the things that are going on in markets for the benefit of accumulating your fundamental knowledge. But if you're a student interviewing or assessment centers, things like that, to really enhance and lift your commercial awareness. So all you need to do is just pop your email in there. And then you'll get that, that daily newsletter. But otherwise, let's get straight to it because there's a lot of news to get you up to speed on. I'm going to start with COVID and China, where China's new COVID-19 infections will increase in the coming days and the areas affected by the epidemic may continue to expand, according to a health official. The wave of infections spread to 11 provinces in the week of October 2017. So China continues to face some, some quite substantial challenges on this front. Obviously, the containment needs to be on a grand scale comparative to other countries, just given the size of the population. You know, some of these provinces are as big as countries when it comes to comparative to Western Europe. And so we continue to keep an eye on this. In particular, Goldman Sachs have come out in a research note overnight and And they've said that the Chinese economy will probably expand just 5.2% next year, down from a previous projection of 5.6%, just given some of these challenges. Elsewhere, this was quite interesting. This was Anthony Fauci and Rochelle Walensky, who's the head of the CDC, essentially. They've signaled their confidence that children aged 5 to 11 will begin getting COVID-19 vaccines by early November. Advisors to the US FDA will meet on Tuesday, as far as the timeline is concerned, to consider data for children's use of vaccines by Pfizer and BioNTech. An approval by the FDA and CDC is required. And so yeah, in the UK at the moment, we're facing the logistical challenge of trying to roll out a vaccine program for high school kids. Typically those from the ages of, say, 12 to 17. But in the US, as you just heard from those numbers, they're looking to target even lower, and that's what's being tested and, and looking for approval at the moment with the regulators, between 5 to 11. And so, yeah, something just to be, to be aware of. Then the other thing is, just on the kind of global scene, we obviously continue to keep a very close eye on daily cases in Britain Uh, the UK Chancellor spoke on, on political shows on Sunday and basically told the BBC that the data did not currently suggest a need for stronger restrictions. So daily case rates in the UK have been very elevated, as the subheader would suggest here. They have been the highest level since July, is what we saw last week. However, hospitalizations are around the 1,000 mark, which is way lower irrespective of the fact that the case rate is fairly similar to what we had at the beginning of the year, or at least this time last year when we were going into winter. So at the moment, obviously the vaccine's more strongly deployed now than they were then for sure, and so therefore that's what the difference is. And subsequent death rates remain fairly low in comparative terms, so the Plan B not needing to be actioned as yet, but certainly we're keeping an eye on that. And then there's other areas, as it says here, Russia, Singapore, among the latest virus kind of hotspots overall. One thing I did see that I thought was quite a good summary was that the expected colder temperatures, waning vaccine efficacy, and the gaps in immunisation coverage make it difficult to predict the, the next evolution of where this will head, according to an epidemiologist and for an institute in France, or for the French government. And so they were suggesting, and I'd agree with this timeline, it's going to be the next 3 to 6 weeks that are going to be quite key. And really, if we're just to take the UK as a reference point, I think in 3 to 6 weeks you have a pretty good idea about this most recent acceleration of where that's going to end up. You know, do we get to, as what the Health Secretary is saying last week, that 100K figure? Remember, he has said that before and we got nowhere near that in the UK. So the next 3 to 6 weeks will really be quite telling. The point being, down on the— if we get up to those more lofty figures, is the response from the government. And if we go down the sequence of that impeding then economic activity, does that then throw off course what a lot of these big banks have been calling for and how the rates market at least have been pricing in the UK, which is a rate hike as soon as November? One would think, you know, if those numbers in COVID start to get materially worse in that fashion described, then that becomes a lesser likelier case, I would imagine. All right, elsewhere, a quick update in the US. Not spending too much time on this because it really is not expected to move, I don't think, anytime too soon. But Biden met with a key moderate Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer yesterday to finalize his up to $2 trillion tax and spending plan. So we'll be looking out for any further updates as they come into work today. Democrats have said they hoped an agreement in principle on the bill would allow the House to vote this week on a separate $550 billion physical infrastructure bill that has been held up by progressives who obviously wanted to bolt in two deals together in a much bigger spending bill. But again, that's what's having challenges. And so does that get broken up into its subparts? To then get at least some of it, the infrastructure side, passed while the debates on other areas continue. Um, not particularly market-moving for now, I'd say, on those types of headlines. Oil, as I said, is elevated again this morning. We're up 85 cents and we're heading towards $85 in the futures market. Nigeria has joined fellow OPEC+ member Saudi Arabia in saying the group must resist pressure to raise oil production faster until the coronavirus pandemic abates. Um, bit of context, it's definitely not unexpected to hear Nigeria saying such commentary. They're currently pumping 1.4 million barrels per day, and their oil ministry has before talked about targets of which they would like to hit at 1.6 million. So for them, they're still below where they need to be, and so Um, again, hearing them talk about this sort of thing, I don't think is, is too surprising. So even though there's a bit of space, spare capacity there, I think that they're enjoying probably the more higher price that we're seeing at the moment, and then they'll gradually ratchet up to that, that extra supply side as time goes on. And meanwhile, the energy— the Saudi energy minister has said on Saturday that oil producers should not take the rise in oil prices for granted because the virus could still hit demand. And so given these commentaries, it's kind of like monitoring central bankers. If you're looking at that for any type of forward guidance, we're not expecting any subsequent changes then to the amount of which they're altering the supply agreement as we go meeting to meeting. Next meeting is on the 4th of November as a reference point. UK Brexit, actually a little bit of movement perhaps here. This definitely hasn't translated into any positivity in, in the pound. That's because mainly we're not expecting for several weeks any real conclusion to this, but we continue to monitor the ebb and flow of the negotiation and talks resolving the EU-UK standoff over Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland are set to resume tomorrow on Tuesday, with focus shifting onto the role of the European Court of Justice, the ECJ. There's been some media speculation, and this is the latest from the UK Brexit Minister Frost, that could support a Swiss-style governance arrangement for the Northern Ireland Protocol. Now, what is that? Well, under such an agreement, an arbitration panel would be set up to deal with disagreements about the protocol, with the ECJ retaining a role to interpret questions of EU law. So essentially, you can look at this in a simplified way So the ECJ don't have direct control then over what happens. They have a third-party arbitration panel, so independent Swiss-style neutrality. But then if there is certain questions on disagreements, then the ECJ gets involved to interpret questions specifically on what their oversight is, which is EU law. So yeah, that's, that's the latest there. Frost and the European Commission Vice President are due to meet in person at Westminster at the end of the week. So we'll see how that goes. As I said, the initial talks are going to resume tomorrow on Tuesday. Expectations are that these negotiations are going to run well into November. So yeah, not looking for a slam dunk at this point, but definitely a little bit more maneuvering here in a positive fashion seen over the weekend. Quick talk about US earnings. There is 164 S&P 500 companies reporting this week, and that includes 10 of the 30 Dow components. Now, just running through a couple of highlights on aftermarket today, you've got Facebook reporting Tuesday, pre-market GE, 3M, aftermarket Microsoft, Alphabet, Twitter, Before market on Wednesday, Boeing, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Spotify. Aftermarket, Ford, for example. Thursday, pre-market, Caterpillar, Merck. Aftermarket, Apple, Amazon. The two tech giants go head-to-head with their earnings on Thursday night. And then aftermarket on Friday, the energy majors, ExxonMobil, Chevron. So really big week for earnings. Again, I guess from a mega-cap tech NASDAQ perspective, Facebook after market Monday, Alphabet and Microsoft Tuesday, Apple, Amazon on Thursday. So all of the big guns are coming out. So definitely these will be closely watched, of course. And I'll go into all of those in more detail ahead of their actual release. So I'll be, I'll be tweeting out the Facebook results as they come out later. Later on tonight. On that front, on earnings, we've had HSBC this morning in the UK. They will begin a $2 billion share buyback as a surprise 74% increase in profits nearly 2 years on from the start of the pandemic. Pre-tax profits for the third quarter of the year were $5.4 billion. Analyst expectations were actually for $3.7 billion. So really strong results there. The pivot to Asia boosted in the third quarter, improving global economic outlook. Again, although as I've been talking about with COVID we're not out of the woods yet, things are substantially better than what they were during the initial onset of the pandemic. And then quickly, the Turkish lira, not something I would, I'd look at day to day, but there's been some obviously really meaningful moves of late, and the Turkish lira was down nearly 2% in early Asian trade. Mid fairly thin liquidity and touched a new low for a third straight day. So what exactly is happening? Well, it's already been under pressure given last week we had a larger than expected rate cut. The currency has also encountered now fresh selling pressure after President Erdoğan said on Saturday that ambassadors of 10 nations were now no longer welcome in the country. Erdogan has been, of course, seeking to appeal generally to more nationalistic voters. And the latest move does coincide with opinion polls suggesting his support base is eroding. So hence the reason why he's upping the ante with the banning of these ambassadors. But in the, in the end, it's almost self-inflicting because the weaker the currency gets, the more inflation starts to surge out of control. And the cost of living goes up, and the more unpopular he becomes. So, um, yeah, more political disarray in Turkey at the moment, really hurting their, their local currency. And that leads us then to the calendar. What have we got then for the week ahead? Um, quite a few different things. Starting off then, going through chronologically, Monday you've got German IFO. So later on this morning, it comes in the context of having that data set declining for 3 straight months to the lowest reading in 5 months that we saw last time, mainly due to the ongoing supply shortages in the industrial sector. Then we got Bank of England's Senrero coming out this afternoon, but that's about it for today. And then Tuesday we have the US new home sales and the Conference Board consumer confidence reading. US consumer confidence, the headline figure expected to show a slight improvement after the data did drop in September. As the spread of the Delta variant continued to dampen optimism, but that has, that has faded somewhat going forward. We'll be expecting that to pick up, but only very marginally. And then Wednesday, we've got the UK's Chancellor delivering his budget, which will probably reveal plans to support public services and revive the economy amid prospects of slowing growth, rising inflation, and interest rates at this point in time, and the unraveling of that energy crisis, of course. So Um, I'll go through that in the Wednesday morning briefing in much more detail. Again, from a top level, the budget doesn't typically have too much influence in terms of the day-to-day intraday market activity, but for sure we'll be keeping an eye on the latest highlights and what that could be in terms of the implications for the overall UK economic outlook. Going further on then to the rest of the week, Thursday is when it gets a little bit more interesting. You've got the ECB interest rate decision. Of course, um, the ECB is not the Bank of England and is likely to be the main message from the meeting, according to strategists at Citi, who said in a note over the weekend, referring to the recent hawkish rhetoric we've had from the BoE policymakers, the Citi strategist said the ECB is likely to push back probably more strongly than so far against the idea of early rate hikes and also on any notion that the sequencing between asset purchases and rate hikes may change. Remember, the ambition in the US is to taper, to reduce then the active amount of bonds that they're buying on a monthly basis, then have a period of kind of wait and see before then hiking rates later, say 18 months, 24 months later. Whereas in the UK, there's talks of rate hikes before then tweaking the the asset kind of purchase program or facility. And so the ECB not expected to alter their stance, which is really addressing the QE side of things first in a more Fed style. Lagarde is not expected to provide details of asset purchase plans beyond the end date of the emergency pandemic program, which is expected to finish in March. Instead, the president will probably indicate that ECB staff are studying various QE transition options for the December meeting, as according to the head of European rates at Barclays. And that pretty much coming in fitting with some of those Bloomberg source reports we've had over recent weeks, which was talking about this idea of them tweaking the parameters of which they conduct, and perhaps a temporary increase into the underlying APP, Asset Purchase Program, to just soften the transition once their Pep is just removed out of action from March. So yeah, that you could, you can expect perhaps some indication about them studying options. So very uncommitted in that way, but a little tip of the hat towards that is probably what's going to happen. And then we've also got the US GDP figure. This is the Q3 advanced reading, so particularly meaningful one in the US. The economists project that the US Commerce Department will show GDP growth of around 3.2% on an annualized basis in the July-September quarter, compared with 6.7% in the second quarter. Consumer confidence fell obviously quite sharply during that period. We saw that outbreak with the Delta resurgence. They also grew more aware of higher prices on everything from groceries to petrol to home prices, all contributing to a bit of a pullback in spending, and hence the reason why we've got a bit of a slowdown there in US growth. However, most analysts see this as relatively temporary, and given now that COVID has, has been over the last couple of weeks has been declining fairly positively, then actually the resumption of reopening and activity happening and confidence returning, and therefore actually expecting renewed growth going into the, the back end of the year. So it's just a point that Q3 was particularly challenging because of that summer COVID situation. That being said, then means that this data, even though it's going to be quite low on that, on the superficial level, perhaps they're not going to have a massive impact given that anticipation then that this is just a lull before we pick back up, as I just mentioned. And then the weekly jobless claims, as usual, we'll be looking out for. Again, we've generally seen a positive pattern with that, with Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to 290,000 in the week ending October 16th. So last week, that was the lowest levels we had ever since the pandemic begun. And that figure expected to remain relatively suppressed for the moment. And then on Friday, the other main data releases we're looking out for then is not only do we get the various eurozone preliminary Q3 GDP numbers, but we also get the flash CPI readings coming out for October. And we also get the other— yeah, sorry, the flash GDP. Just getting my wires crossed there slightly. So you got the flash CPI and the GDP numbers going to be the key things that are coming out on Friday. And so that is it. So let you guys get on with the session. Remember to check out the Market Maker newsletter if you're interested. Just all you need to do is pop your email in and you'll, you'll be straight on that list and you'll start getting emails at the end of the day. Otherwise, I'll let you guys get on. Any questions at all, feel free to drop me a comment and yeah, have a good week ahead. Take care.