Overnight, Asian interest was subdued. The Hang Seng is down 0.47%, the Nikkei is flat, and the CSI is up 0.13%. The patience game is still being played ahead of key U.S. data. In my reading yesterday, my favorite line was, "In the last 37 years, the Fed has only cut by 50 bp heading into a recession. Neither the Fed nor the current state of U.S. data suggests a recession is coming, so a half-point cut seems unlikely at the moment."
Domestically, Parliament is back, and overnight, the British Retail Consortium showed the strongest uptick in five months, at 1.0% y/y vs. 0.5% last, while a separate survey from Barclaycard saw spending up 1.0% y/y after two months of declines. Both pointed to higher grocery spending as Britons stepped out to enjoy barbecues and picnics in the summer.
In commodities, the iron slump continues; September touched lows of around $94.20 before recovering slightly into the lunch break. In currencies, USD/JPY slipped slightly from 146.80 to 146.64 after Bloomberg reported that Pimco sees the BoJ hiking again as early as January and favors investing in long-term government bonds.
As for the day ahead, we have Switzerland's GDP, CPI, U.S. construction spending, and the ISM Manufacturing Index. Market-wise, Bitcoin rose 0.3% to $59,203.86, spot gold fell 0.2% to $2,495.22 an ounce, West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.8% to $74.13 a barrel, and the proud pound sits at 1.3115.
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