Morning Update – 05/05/2017 – by Arjun Lakhanpal

Morning all.. Another mixed and quiet session on Wall St which again closed unchanged on the day. Nikkei remains closed fr Golden week. Markets on hold now waiting for payrolls data from the US today.. There was some upbeat news as US House: approves first comprehensive plan to rework part of Dodd-Frank; US House: passes Healthcare bill 217 vs 213; bill now moves to Senate though where it may still struggle.-US Senate: passes spending bill; Pres Trump expected to sign bill before deadline-Atlanta Fed GDPNow f/c Q2: 4.2% vs 4.3% prior. In the UK there was a boost for PM May in the local elections. UK Local Election Early Results: Conservatives gain control of 5 councils, Labour loses 2 and UKIP got hit hard. UK April BDO like for like sales: +1.9% y/y from a low base; BDO- sales  weaker than expected over a later Easter period where retailers would have been expecting a boost in April.. RBA Quarterly statement: Appreciating AUD would complicate their economies transition; GDP f/c unchanged 1.5-2.5% in June, 2.5-3.5% in Dec, June’18 f/c raised to 2.75-3.75% vs 2.5-3.5%; inflation & unemployment f/c’s unchanged; Dec GDP data confirmed that mid’16 weakness was only temporary. In Japan, BoJ’s Kuroda: Japan’s public mindset remains quite cautious in terms of inflation exp’s, quite sure that continuous easy policy alongside support from fiscal policy will see px’s rise significantly.. Oil the big news yesterday and in Asia the slide continued with WTI below 444 at one point; down over 3%. Commodity currencies have been hit as a result with ZAR,MXN, NOK, CAD and AUD the weakest overnight. This morning we get German construction PMI data & Swedish Industrial production. The main event will be the US payrolls data but keep an eye on oil.. Good luck.