Markets pause as Trump bans Tiktok and WeChat - 7.8.2020

The Dollar weakening has halted currently ahead of nonfarm employment report at 16:30 CET today. The live dollar index data show the ICE US Dollar index, a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of six rival currencies, slid 0.04% Thursday as Labor Department data showed 1.186 million Americans filed for first-time benefits, a decline of 249,000. Both GBP/USD and EUR/USD continued their climbing yesterday as the Bank of England revised upward its forecast for UK 2020 GDP drop to 9.5% from an initial estimate of 14%. Both pairs are lower currently. Both yen and Australian dollar continued their climbing yesterday against the greenback with the dynamics reversed for both currently.

Futures on three main US stock indexes are lower currently after ending higher Thursday. The three main US stock indexes recorded gains ranging 0.6% to 1.0% led by technology shares as President Trump said he could take executive action if Democrats and Republicans aren’t able to reach a compromise on new aid package by the self-imposed deadline of Friday. European stock indexes are lower today after ending solidly higher Thursday as German factory orders surged 27.9% over month in June. Asian indexes are all solidly lower today led by Heng Seng on concerns of Chinese retaliatory actions after President Trump called TikTok and WeChat “significant threats” to US digital networks and banned US transactions with them.

Brent is edging lower today. Oil prices fell yesterday after the Energy Information Administration report Wednesday showing a weekly rise of 419,000 barrels in gasoline inventories. The US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures ended lower yesterday: September WTI fell 0.6% and is lower currently. October Brent crude closed 0.2% lower at $45.09 a barrel on Thursday.