- US August pending home sales +4.0% vs +0.2% expected
- Dallas Fed September manufacturing index -8.7 vs -1.8 prior
- White House releases plan: No one forced to leave Gaza and Israel won't occupy
- Fed's Musalem: It's important to lean against above-target inflation regardless of source
- Fed's Williams: Monetary continues to be restrictive, still a ways to go to get to 2% goal
- Fed's Hammack: Inflation is too high and the trend is in the wrong direction
- Fed's Hammack: Tariff pass-through less than expected
- Netanyahu spoke on the phone with Qatar's PM and apologized for Qatari bombing
- BLS will not release economic data if there is a government shutdown on October 1
- BoE's Ramsden: I see loosening in labour market as anchoring inflation outlook for me
Markets:
- Gold up $68 to $3828
- WTI crude oil down $2.52 to $63.20
- US 10-year yields down 4.3 bps 4.14%
- Bitcoin up 3.1%
- S&P 500 up 0.3%
- JPY leads, USD lags
The US dollar was soft to stat the week but it wasn't a news-driven move. Last week, we saw something of a short squeeze in USD sellers and that move ran out of gas then started to reverse with stock markets higher. The worries about US inflation also ebbed with oil prices falling nearly 4%. There may have been some month-end flows as well.
The drop in oil was partly driven by a report about more OPEC production coming up the next meeting but there were also bids late last week on US military angst regarding Venezuela and the big meeting of generals in Virginia. Ultimately that added up to nothing (at least for the moment) so last week's moves reversed.
Stocks started very strong but weren't particularly resilient. Tech led the way but it was a mixed picture elsewhere. The S&P 500 briefly flirted with falling back to unchanged on the day before rebounding to a modest gain.
Gold did what it seems to do every day. The resumption of USD selling and a bid in bonds led to very strong gold buying, particularly in Europe. There was some profit taking at the start of US trading before a fresh wave of buying to as high as $3833. At this pace, it's not too soon to talk about $4000.
