Asia

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

From Bill Blain of Mint Partners.

Morning Porridge - July 3rd 2017

“If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that’s concentration…”

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Welcome to the second half of 2017. This week is likely to be thin - the first week of the great summer slowdown and Wimbledon, US holidays and payrolls on Friday.

But... what comes next?

FX Week Ahead, courtesy of Rajan Dhall from fxdaily.co.uk

Despite the NY market holiday over Independence day in the US, we have a number of notable data releases leading up to the main event next week in the May employment report (Friday). 

S&P500 futures have started the second half solidly in the green, up 0.3% to 2,429, tracking European markets broadly in the green, while Asian stocks fell slightly and crude oil is little changed. With US markets set to close at 1pm today trading volumes in many markets remain light before Tuesday’s July 4th holiday and as investors await Friday’s report on the American jobs market. Traders will be looking at key upcoming economic data for validation of the hawkish shift from central banks that roiled markets last week. 

On Sunday Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party suffered what Reuters called a "historic defeat" in the Tokyo assembly election, and "plunged into a crisis" after losing to an upstart outfit in an vote that is seen as a harbinger for Japan's national elections, and signaling trouble ahead for the premier who has suffered from slumping support after a series of political scandals.