USA and China, Saudi Aramco and Bank of England

11 nov 2019

The previous week, promised to be relatively calm, however, it turned out to be eventful. Gold and the Japanese yen were under downward pressure. The reason is the progress in negotiations between the US and China as well as the growth of positive market expectations regarding the end of trade wars in the foreseeable future. The main result of the week was the news that the United States and China agreed on a phased cancellation of duties before signing a deal.

Another event was a separate decision by the Bank of England to leave the rate unchanged. Markets did not expect two members of the Monetary Policy Committee to be in favour of a rate cut. That triggered a decline in the British pound value. In general, you should not expect strong movements in the pound, because the basic driver of pound value in the last 3 years is Brexit. But it is paused so far. So any movement caused by news not related to UK exit will be limited.

Due to the large amounts of macroeconomic statistics, the future of the pound looks very vague. On Monday, data on GDP and industrial production in the UK will be published, on Tuesday - statistics on the labour market, on Wednesday - inflation data, on Thursday the data on retail sales will sum up the week. Since the dynamics of the pound, this week will depend on the output data, we will adjust the positions depending on the nature of the data. At the same time, we do not expect irrationality from the foreign exchange market. That is, weak data will provoke sales in pound pairs, and positive statistics data will be the reason for the growth of the pound. Total, this week in the pound we will act contextually, but we give preference to its purchases.

On the other hand, we have a very definite position in the oil market - we will look for points for asset purchases. Saudi Arabia in connection with the impending IPO Saudi Aramco will do anything to ensure the growth of oil prices. Latest data on the number of active oil rigs in the United States (the number has dropped to the lowest marks since April 2017) play into the hands of buyers. So we buy oil on the intraday basis. The goal is the growth up to 60.