A slower Monday set to greet European traders to start the week | investingLive
The meeting in Alaska was a bit of a dud to say the least as it didn’t achieve much. Now, we’ll see Ukraine president Zelensky head to Washington again to meet with US president Trump. This time around though, he will be accompanied by European leaders so as to not get ambushed as he did back in February.
There’s hopeful optimism but given how talks are being done separately in this manner, you wouldn’t blame me for being skeptical that some deal can be done without Ukraine being involved. All eyes will be on what Trump will sell with regards to the security guarantees. So, we’ll see.
As markets return from the weekend, the mood music is more sanguine to start the new week. Major currencies aren’t up to much with the dollar keeping steadier. That comes after some slight declines on Friday with US retail sales for July more or less matching estimates here. And that is despite markets scaling back on Fed rate cut expectations amid inflation concerns.
Chicago Fed president Goolsbee sounded a bit of a warning shot at the end of last week here.
In other markets, US futures are also holding little changed and marginally higher as we look to the session ahead. The big retailers will be reporting earnings this week, so that will be one to watch for any tariffs impact on prices and consumer appetite. Target and Walmart will be the two big names on the list.
So far on the day, cryptocurrencies are the ones on the move with Ethereum continuing to take a step back after failing to get past $4,800 last week. That is seeing price fall to $4,320 and dropping below both its key hourly moving averages for the first time in two weeks. The winds are changing again.
Coming up today, there won’t be anything significant on the data front in European trading. However, things should pick up with the RBNZ meeting, Fed minutes, UK CPI, and PMI data all set to feature in the days ahead. That before we get to the Jackson Hole symposium at the tail end of the week.