Trading with point and figure

- Trump woes likely to continue to cast a long shadow; digesting Japan
Q1 GDP, Oz labour data and China Property Prices, awaiting UK Retail
Sales, US Claims and Philly Fed; Draghi, Lautenschlaeger & Mester speak,
France, Spain, UK and US to auction debt

- Japan Q1 GDP: real GDP beats forecasts, but deflator slides stalling
nominal GDP, long hard battle for BoJ remains

- UK Retail Sales: seen rebounding from March Easter timing effect
driven slide; CPI data implies some downside risks relative to forecast

- US Claims set to remain close to historical lows in Payrolls survey week;
Philly Fed seen drifting down, but still implying solid level of activity

- Mexico rates: Banxico expected to pause rate hikes as MXN rally gives
room for manoeuvre, expected to retain tightening bias

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** EVENTS PREVIEW **
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The Trump Comey/Lavrov cloud will almost certainly be the key overarching theme, as impeachment chatter gets louder, and equity and other risk asset markets appear to have donned their tin hats, just ahead of monthly equity options expiry tomorrow. In passing, a number of commentators have noted that during the Watergate scandal from 1972 to Nixon's eventual resignation in 1974, the Dow fell 39%, without offering the context of the first oil crisis in 1973, which saw inflation soar, and the Fed Funds rate shoot higher from 3.50% in 1972 to 13.0% in 1974. Be that as it may, there is plenty more to ponder on teh day's schedule, starting with the overnight run of Japan Q1 GDP, Australia Unemployment and China Property Prices, while ahead lies UK Retail Sales, US jobless claims and the Philly Fed survey. Draghi, Lautenschlaeger and Mester will be speaking, while official rates are seen on hold in Indonesia, Mexico and Chile. In what has been a busy week for govt and corporate bond issuance (though markedly lower yesterday on the back of the sell-off in risk assets), today has short-dated and I-L sales in France, a mix of short and medium dated issuance in Spain, UK 2-yr and a re-opening of the current US 10-yr TIPS benchmark. In respect of Japan Q1 GDP, a considerably better than expected outturn at 0.5% q/q or 2.2% SAAR (vs. forecast 1.7%) in real terms appears quite impressive, particularly as this marks a fifth consecutive quarter of growth, the best since a six quarter in 2005 to 2006. However Nominal GDP contracted 0.1% q/q, the first fall in five quarters, and underlines that the BoJ's battle against deflation is anything but won, even if Business CapEx was much better than expected at 0.2% q/q (vs. forecast -0.4%), and Net Exports accounted for just 0.1 ppt of Q1 GDP.

** U.K. - April Retail Sales **
- After an Easter timing effect slide in March (-1.8% m/m), today's April Retail Sales are expected to bounce 1.0% m/m, which would fit broadly with the rebound in the BRC's measure, though that is a value not a volume measure. Indeed the higher than expected CPI data suggest the risks may be to the downside of the consensus, given that some of the biggest price rises were in key components such as Clothing & Footwear, though overall goods prices were much better behaved (-0.1% m/m), in no small part due to petrol prices and seasonal discounting on Furniture / Household Equipment, than Services (+1.1% m/m). As ever and especially given the "noisiness" of this series, the 3mth/3mth change should offer a more reliable indication of underlying trends, it was -1.4% q/q in March, little changed from February's -1.5% q/q.

** U.S.A. - Initial Claims / May Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook **
- Weekly jobless Claims are expected to edge up modestly to 240K after two weeks of better than expected readings, with this week being of particular interest, as it is the week in which the BLS conducts its payrolls survey. Whatever the outcome, the fact remains that the US labour market remains very tight, and serves a reminder that the bar to the Fed not hiking rates in June remains, even if Trump's woes and yesterday's equity market drop has prompted a push back on the probability of a June hike, it still remains at 64.6%. After the relatively sharp drop in the NY Fed Manufacturing index (-1.0 vs. expectations of a rise to 7.5 from April's 5.2), markets will see the risks on today's Philly Fed survey to the downside of the projected dip to 18.5 from April's 22.0. That said, the Philly Fed region has a disproportionately high number of energy sector companies, above all refiners, who should continue to be feeling relatively upbeat about business prospects.

** Mexico - Banco de Mexico rate decision **
- After a run of four 50 bps hikes and last month's 25 bps move, Banco de Mexico is expected to keep rates on hold at 6.50%, though there are some that see another 25 bps move at this meeting, and the year-end consensus still looks for 7.25%. In other words if rates are held unchanged, the market expects this to be a pause, rather than viewing this as a potential peak for the current cycle. Eminently the sharp rally in the MXN (which has stalled in the past 4 weeks) gives Banxico some room for manoeuvre, and should help to rein in the steady rise in inflation to a peak of 5.82% y/y in April, which leaves real rates still looking rather 'skinny'.

from Marc Ostwald
 
G'day folks,

Lots of activity...escalator going both ways...excellent

Ftse sp 7450 zone....taken a few long so far from here....pump or dump..lets see

ASX interesting...5700 zone...strong sp....could make a decent swing long.... I'm in @5708..
 
G'day folks,

Lots of activity...escalator going both ways...excellent

Ftse sp 7450 zone....taken a few long so far from here....pump or dump..lets see

ASX interesting...5700 zone...strong sp....could make a decent swing long.... I'm in @5708..

Ftse dump...sp 7420 zone...no suprises... think 7420-30 area will give a good indication of bulls intent or not...
 
ftse

m7qkc0.png
in that supp area now
wil it hold..??
 
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