Articles

• China always open to resolving economic, trade relations offline.
• Will release more information in due course.

It starts looking more and more like Trump wasn’t lying about US and China having private conversations about trade, and the Chinese were just denying that because they want to keep things private (which is something Trump couldn’t do).

Anyway, this is not new information, so it won’t affect the market, but it’s nice to see that things continue to look better and better.

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.

• We expect that the negotiations will lead to a good result
• But would like to make it clear that we are prepared to act if talks do not succeed

So far, it’s been very slow-going in terms of any progress between the EU and US. Well, to be fair the only countries that are making real progress are the US’ closer allies i.e. UK, Japan, India, South Korea. If you think about it, it is a slap in the face to everyone else that China also got the same 10% baseline treatment after all the retaliation by only deciding to sit down and talk. Meanwhile, everyone else had no choice but to get that shoved down their throat even by trying to reconcile instead of retaliating.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

• EU, US have a greed to intensify contact on trade talks

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

• We are going into a series of negotiations with China to prevent escalation again.
• We now have a mechanism with China counterparts.

There’s nothing new here.

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.

• Eurostoxx -0.6%
• Germany DAX -0.6%
• France CAC 40 -0.4%
• UK FTSE -0.5%
• Spain IBEX -0.2%
• Italy FTSE MIB -0.6%

This comes as US futures are also holding lower so far on the day. S&P 500 futures are down 0.5%, with Nasdaq futures down 0.5% and Dow futures down 0.6% currently. It’s a bit of a check back for US stocks after the surging gains all through the week, mainly for tech shares.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

That’s a much stronger promise than what was initially reported here. It will be interesting to see what Trump is offering back in return though. Will India be able to buy an exemption? Or is there still going to be the 10% baseline?

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

• We’re getting close to doing a deal with Iran.
• Iran has agreed to terms; we want them to succeed.

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.

With his visit to the Middle East, Trump is turning his attention to other geopolitical matters this week. Iran continues to defend their stance and not give in though, so we’ll see about that. But for markets in general, all of this at least buys further reprieve on the trade front after the US and China settled on a 90-day de-escalation since the weekend.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

• Prior +0.8%
• HICP +0.9% vs +0.8% y/y prelim
• Prior +0.9%

Core annual inflation continues to hold steady at 1.3%, the same as in March and February.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

The breakdown shows producer prices rising by 0.2% on the month while import prices were flat in April. Compared to the same month a year ago, the overall index is down 0.5% with the chunk of that owing to a decline in import prices (-1.8%).

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

• Prior -0.2%

It’s a marginal decline in wholesale prices on the month but the overall reading remains elevated. Compared to the same month last year, German wholesale prices are seen up 0.8% still.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

• Prior +0.5%
• Services +0.4% vs +0.1% m/m expected
• Prior +0.3%
• Industrial output -0.7% vs -0.5% m/m expected
• Prior +1.5%; revised to +1.7%
• Manufacturing output -0.8% vs -0.5% m/m expected
• Prior +2.2%; revised to +2.4%
• Construction output +0.5% vs +0.1% m/m expected
• Prior +0.4%; revised to +0.2%

The focus today is on the quarterly report but the beat on estimates in the March report here is helping to give the former a boost as well. It reaffirms a solid showing in the UK economy in the first quarter of the year at least.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.