With payrolls looming (our full preview is here), carbon-based traders around the globe are leery of putting on any major trades and so the overnight session has been rather dull, dominated by the now traditional overnight algo-mediated levitation, which means the VIX is lower and S&P futures are once again modest higher as European and Asian shares continue their ascent.
Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
The skies are clearing over Houston, but the damage from the remaining elements of Hurricane Harvey has spread east to Port Arthur and Lake Charles along the Texas-Louisiana border. That has knocked more refineries offline, including the largest refinery in the United States.
Authored by Drieu Godefridi via The Gatestone Institute,
Just minutes after Russia was given 2 days to implement today's decision by the State Department, shuttering Russia’s consulate in San Francisco, California and two diplomatic annexes in Washington, DC and New York City, in "the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians", the Russian responses started coming in, and they were not happy.
Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was first on the tape, saying he “expressed regret about the escalation of tensions in bilateral ties”, noting "it wasn’t Russia that started the escalation."
If there is one common theme across sellside previews of tomorrow's nonfarm payrolls number, expected at 180K after a surprising jump to 209K in July, it is to brace for disappointment, or in Wall Street parlance, "downside risks." And it's not because of Harvey which hit the US far too late in the month to be reflected in the monthly payrolls.