Morning Update – 24/08/2017 – by Arjun Lakhanpal

Morning all.. Wall St didn’t like the fact that Trump is talking shutting down the government in order to get his wall built and the S&P closed down 0.35%. It was a similar story in Asia with the Nikkei down 0.3%, not helped by weakness in USDJPY which spent a lot of the session sub 109.00. But it was another quiet session again for FX with all currencies trading in range. USD marginally strengthened against its peers as traders remain focused around Jackson Hole, which sees Yellen and Draghi speak tomorrow. Excluding the October flash crash in GBP, EUR is hovering against an 8-year high vs GBP. US Treasuries’ were down 3.7bps and sit at 2.175%. In commodities, Oil held on to gains with Brent Crude 1.4% higher after US stockpiles fell by 3.3m barrels last week. The markets look set to remain quiet into this JH gathering and it seems Draghi is the main event. Yellen’s key note speech is at 10am EST Friday, this is the first keynote speech thus will likely be tied to the conference theme. EUR and EURGBP are still grabbing all the attention and last night -(~19:51bst) ECB’s Hansson (hawk): said not currently concerned with strength of euro which is largely a reflection of the region’s economic momentum; focus instead should be on crafting a policy message for path of stimulus in 2018; shifting focus of guidance away from APP & towards overall level of accommodation would give ECB more leeway in calibrating its policy; let’s be a bit more patient and let’s believe that inflation is in the pipeline, it’s just going to take us a bit more time; asset-purchase composition can matter more than size; opposes change to QE issue, issuer limits. China Commerce Ministry Spox: China will use all necessary means to defend interests of China and Chinese firms against US trade probe; will deepen reforms concerning its overseas investment process. This morning we get French business and manufacturing confidence data, Spanish and UK GDP for Q2.  Plus UK Mortgage data. Good luck.