Meeting

FOMC minutes due for release – daily market moving news & events roundup, 21st August 2019

Market moving daily news roundup – events & news likely to move markets 21st August 2019

Company performance, economic and political events but especially market sentiment will always influence market movement, good or bad.

Summary

Economic news calendar 21st August 2019 main market moving scheduled events

UK – public sector borrowing data due at: 09:30 BST

Canada – consumer price index data due at: 13:30 BST

U.S. – homes sales data (existing) due at: 15:00 BST

U.S. – FOMC minutes to be released – due at: 19:00 BST

Note

Items highlighted in red are more likely to move markets, amber and blue less so. Only what I regard as the ‘main’ scheduled events are listed here.

Market moving news roundup, Wednesday 21st August 2019

News upate

Investors will watch for policy clues in FOMC minutes

Investors eagerly await the release of minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting when the committee voted for the first interest cut since 2008. The minutes release comes ahead of a speech by Fed chairman Jerome Powell later this week at the Jackson Hole ‘central bank’ annual gathering.

Asian stock markets broadly hold flat Wednesday.

UKBarclays Research predicts a no-deal Brexit recession.

UK – The UK budget surplus comes in below expectations for July. Borrowing rises in the financial year. See ONS data here.

UK – U.S. and Asian businesses are top of investment leader board when it comes to foreign investment in UK tech firms. The weaker pound is attractive to investors. Report analysis supplied by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

UK – HS2 project under government review. Oh my! Let the government chuck £7 billion at it. Then talk about it a bit and then waste some more! Brilliant!

UK – a decade of austerity and what have we achieved? What have we learned? And what have we gained?

UK – The heightened talk of the possibility of a ‘no deal Brexit’ is holding Sterling down.

Money

UK – Ryanair struggles with threat of pilot strikes.

U.S. – Oil price increase on U.S. inventory drop

UK – Michael Gove pledges to keep traffic flowing through ports after Brexit.

U.S. – Walmart reportedly to sue Tesla over solar panel fires due to installation problems.

U.S. – Amazon faces criticism over latest ‘plastic’ packaging. As UK supermarkets endeavour to reduce the use of plastic – Amazon, on the other-hand reportedly introduced a new range of plastic packaging. Not so clever!

U.S. – home sales increase by more than expected in July. Strong employment and low mortgage rates is a pretty good combination.

How accurate is our data?

The ONS said today that an error has led to an ‘underestimation’ of EU to UK migration figures. And, it also may have overstated migration from non EU countries too. The period in question apparently ranges from mid 2000’s to 2016.

Yesterday the ONS said that the ‘method’ used to calculate UK GDP (it is now larger than thought), was to be changed. It does slightly beg the question of, ‘how reliable and accurate is the data?’ It is, after all, very important information and it is used to make serious economic decisions, isn’t it? It therefore must be accurate.

FOMC minutes update

Fed officials say the interest rate cut should not be viewed as part of a ‘pre-set course’ for future cuts. The minutes also note that ‘a couple’ of members wanted a 50 basis point cut. Has this ‘view’ now changed since the yield curve inversion?

Interest rates

Investors will now be closely watching Fed chair Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole on Friday.

Trump again tweeted his disdain of the Federal Reserve.

Stock market indices update, August 21st 2019

Closing positions of: FTSE 100, DAX, DOW, S&P 500, NASDAQ, NIKKEI & GOLD

I trade these indices.

Global markets lose some ground.

FTSE 100 – closed at: 7204

DAX – closed at: 11803

DOW – closed at: 26202

S&P 500 – closed at: 2924

NASDAQ – closed at: 8020

NIKKEI – closed at: 20618

GOLD – closed at around: $1,512

Key: Green highlight markets move up. Red highlight markets move down.All values rounded.

U.S. – Yield curve inverts again with 2 year Treasury yield briefly going above the 10 year rate.

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