This morning the Financial Times reports that the ECB’s wing that looks at the performance of the EU’s biggest banks, took a closer look at European lenders’ outstanding loans to the Turkish nation, its corporates and retail over the last couple of months. Seeing as the lira has lost about 40 per cent of its value this year, slipping up to 5 per cent at one point yesterday, it’s probably a bit of a late start. The Bank for International Settlements estimates that local lenders and foreign-owned subsidiaries have US $148 billion and €110 billion outstanding. Spanish banks are owed $83 billion, French ones $38 billion and Italian ones $17 billion by Turkey.
City AM reports this morning that data from UK Finance show that UK mortgages in arrears are at a record low 76,740 and that there were only 1,060 repossessions in Q2 2018, also a record. They also mentioned that over 90 per cent of new loans are fixed rate ones, so there will be zero impact in the near term from the Bank of England’s rate rise.
DAX 30
Alternating ups and downs all this week in a nasty little symmetrical triangle.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Short at 12635; stop above 12930. Target 12200.
POSITION TAKER: Square.
FTSE 100
Still going nowhere though holding under 7800. UK Q2 GDP (April-June) due this morning and widely expected to improve to 0.4 per cent from 0.2 in Q1.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Short at 7610; stop above 7800. First target 7500.
POSITION TAKER: Small short at 7799; stop well above 7800. First target 7400, then 7100.
S&P 500
No longer overbought as prices come off the boil a little. Bloomberg reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had been gathering information about Elon Musk’s comments on social media about Tesla this week
SHORT TERM TRADER: Short at 2795; stop above 2880. Target 2600.
POSITION TAKER: Short at 2805; stop above 2900. Target 2555.
BRITISH POUND/US DOLLAR
Bearish momentum building as trade wars and sanctions threats grow and become real. Foreign exchange markets a very disparate bunch. Be very careful.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Square.
POSITION TAKER: Square.
EURO/US DOLLAR
Bearish momentum building here and back under 90 UK pence per euro as we break below the endless symmetrical triangle.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Stopped out and lost one cent rather quickly.
POSITION TAKER: Square.
GOLD
Both prices and the RSI slinking along the bottom of this year’s range.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Square.
POSITION TAKER: Short at 1242; stop above 1240. Target 1140.
