 Okay, a very good morning to everyone. Hope you are well. It's Friday 23rd of August. The day has arrived. The main trading day of the week, of course. We're looking out for this chap to the side of me. The Fed share, Jerome Powell's going to be speaking at 3 p.m. London time this afternoon. So very much the main focus of the session. And as I said, the week as we look to get a little bit more of confirmation. Wow, that was a fly that just landed on my head. I mean, yeah. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Geez. Not sure if that, is that a sign of good luck or bad luck, I'm not sure. Anyhow. So taking a look at Jay Powell then, obviously the reason why this event is so important is because we've had this communication where they've talked about this mid-cycle adjustment as we know, and that is particularly unusual and comparative to the usual interest rate cycles that central banks like the Federal Reserve tend to adopt in more traditional times. And we've had quite a few things that have happened since obviously the last Fed decision a couple of weeks ago now and since then we've had some updates and changes in the trade war situation. We've had the pursuit still of this no-deal Brexit from Boris although we'll go into that in a second, having met some European counterparts and we've got the G7 happening at the weekend. And then you've had, most importantly almost, this inversion of the yield curve which again happened once more yesterday. And whether or not that has changed or influenced the decision-making at the Federal Reserve. And so we await his speech to get more detail as to what does he think, not just about current economic conditions but also subsequently what is the future monetary policy? Does he lay any more hints, provide more clarity as to what the intentions were with this phrasing about a mid-cycle adjustment? Overall, having just read lots of different types of things, bank research and just talking to other people in markets, I think the coordinated kind of, or the consensus view seems to be that the market could be in for a bit of a disappointment in a sense that Powell likely to just tow the line, not really provide any more kind of substance towards more easing and given the inherent nature of how dovish the market is priced, then we could be in for a kind of hawkish reaction by default of the fact that the market so dovishly priced, if that makes sense. So we'll have a look at that in a second. The quick firstly, a look across the charts and very much a reflection then of now, it's wait and see mode. I would say my suggestion or advice for this morning is to probably act fairly conservatively. There's probably not gonna be a great deal of price movement as people just await then that main event and it's not happening the text until 3 p.m. And so really until that point, there's probably not gonna be a great deal of opportunity. So just being patient is gonna be very important for the morning. Other things that are quite interesting, I guess, is, well, T-notes and yields about a pretty choppy week and I think that is just evident from, as we're gonna discuss in a second, a lot of mixed messages, if anything, coming from the feds. He had a lot of hawkish commentary yesterday from hawks but certainly has dispelled any notion of a 50 basis point rate cut that's gonna happen on the 18th of September. In fact, now that's completely priced out of the market. And then looking elsewhere, gold still holding at 1500 seems to have consolidated there really this week. I mean, after we had such an explosive kind of end of last month, beginning of August, prices really have started to just be caught in about a $15 price range between the 1500 handle and about 15, 15, 20 on the upside. Equities were under pressure, obviously in recent weeks, but again, stabilized to some degree this morning, European and US dot futures are marginally positive. In the currency markets, a little bit of dollar strength overnight. I think that's a bit of follow through from some of the hawkish commentary we had out of the fed yesterday. So as a byproduct of that strength in the greenback, both major pairs in the top left, Euro dollar and cable, just under a little bit of pressure, perhaps cable a little bit more. I think that's more to do with anything with a little bit of profit taking on that rather accentuated move that we had yesterday, where we saw a pretty decent pop at around 130. So back below it's pivot and that looks to be just acting as a bit of a near term resistance point at the moment for what has been trending lower since UK and Europe came into the market. Okay, a few things to talk about then. And then Sam will jump on. You can see, as you just did, my charts relatively clean because Sam's gonna come on and put on his technical levels of significance. So a couple of things to be aware of then overall with this delivery from Powell. Firstly, Powell and Carney are there. And I believe RBA's Lowe is also speaking at the weekend to the final day of Jackson Hole is tomorrow, I think. But Draghi and Coroda have skipped the event. So you're not gonna get any more color or detail from the likes of the ECB or the Bank of Japan. Attending or speaking at the Jackson Hole isn't a requirement. It is up to the central banker if they want to use that event. It's run by the Kansas City in Wyoming in the US and that's where the event is hosted every year. So it gives these central bankers if they feel like they want to communicate more information or be more transparent, a platform to do so. So for the ECB, Bank of Japan, rightly so, I don't think there's any need to kind of put yourself in harm's way for any type of misdirection or interpretation to send to markets. I think the status quo holds for now for those guys, but Powell is obviously the big one. Carney, lesser extent, we know his hands are kind of tied at this point politically with the situation and uncertainty emanating from Brexit. So with Powell, three o'clock, how that will come out, obviously we'll do a much more thorough preview just ahead of the release, but it will be prepared text. And for those who don't know what that means, the accredited news agencies will already have hold of his entire speech. And so when it gets to 3 p.m., it's gonna be bang, all the comments will drop down the financial newswires. The squawk will be reading out line, line, line, line, so you'll know everything immediately. That does then tend to lead to a large bout of volatility, but usually newswires like Bloomberg will pick what they call like a sticky, one of the top main highlighted headlines that they really feel is the standout, one isolated comment from that entire speech. So that will normally be the first one that gets called by the squawk and the one which people will jump on and react to. And probably that's gonna be around this idea of, again, clarity about any commitment to what their ideas are about further easing in the future. Few things to have a look at then. This is looking at the federal funds futures, so the implied probabilities then of a 25 basis point rate cut from the Federal Reserve. And the interesting thing here, comparative to when we were doing the week ahead briefing on Monday, is that a 50 basis point rate cut is now not even visible on this chart. That means then that the kind of checkered one here that says six and a half percent, that's where interest rates are right now. So now in fact, it's flipped completely and six and a half percent is now being priced in that the Fed will hold rates in September, not even cut them at all, not even 25. So that's quite a distinct shift from where we were just five days ago. The overall though, baseline expectations still very much so that we're gonna cut rates by 25 at 93.5 percent probability. If we go out to the end of the year, just to get a sense of where we're gonna be in a few months time, so there's three more Fed interest rate decisions for this year, September, October, and December. And if you look at what the base case is, is that rates which are currently two to two and a quarter in the federal funds rate will be cut and twice is what the market's expecting, with a 48.2 percent probability that will be at 1.5 to 1.75 at that time. So again, this is that idea and if you start drawing this out to kind of 12 months out or even further, you can see that rate cuts are really very much bedded in. I mean, if we go out to March of 2020, interest rates as per market pricing is that in the US will be at 1.25 to 1.5 percent. So you're looking at effectively a hundred basis points of cuts if you include the one executed already. And so hence the reason why I think the market as is nearly always the case is way much more, if the Fed are saying they're doing this, markets are always thinking, well, they're gonna do that because markets are nearly always more dovishly priced. And so that does leave them susceptible to then if the power just has a fairly neutral, consistent message, it could disappoint the doves. If that does happen, that's the type of reaction where you get equity weakness in that sense, dollar strength and then we play that accordingly. So will that be seen? And we'll find out in a couple of hours. The other thing, of course, as I said, the dollar is a little bit firmer this morning and the reason why you've had that distinct shift in the actually some participants thinking that rates won't even change in September is this, this is one of them. This is Esther George of the Kansas City. I was saying, I was joking to Sam this morning, you gotta love the press. Whenever they talk about a hawk, they try to find the most meanest, scariest, angry looking photos of these people to kind of like to put in this like human element of connection that they're a hawk. And then if they get a dove, it's always much more smiley. But yeah, the press is just sometimes unbelievable. Esther George and Parker, Patrick Harker of the Philadelphia Fed, they were speaking yesterday and I know you guys caught the comments, but basically they were outlining that it's unlikely that the central bank is gonna meet expectations and slash interest rates by roughly the hundred basis points by the end of 2020 as the futures prices as we looked at currently indicate. These guys were saying that there's little reason for any additional rate cuts, certainly beyond what's already being done. So the hawks have been out in force to try and realign market expectations. And for me, if I was thinking about a coordinated Fed strategy led by Jerome Powell, why would you have let these guys come out and made these comments if you weren't just going to toe the line today? So I do think that if you're looking for dovish surprise from Powell, you will be disappointed is my point of view. What this has led to then is again, and a version of the yield curve and the two's tens in the US, you can see we flirted with that a week and a half ago, bounced significantly really over the last week. And then we've come back down because this idea of without them cutting does this kind of jeopardize then this idea of a Fed policy error in what this mid-cycle process that they're embarking upon. And so that's making people a little bit nervous again and the inversions happen once more. Would I read too much into this? Would I take this as a trigger point or a signal to reinitiate some aggressive kind of positioning? No, not really, not certainly until I've heard from Powell. Okay, elsewhere, Brexit, what's going on? Well, Angela Merkel is done. Now the French president has also been spoken to. He agreed the two sides should be able to find, quote, something intelligent in 30 days if there is goodwill on all sides. But only if changes did not affect that he used core demands on Ireland and the European single market. So in a sense, he's saying, we're not gonna change anything with Northern Ireland. So all in all, my interpretation of what's happened is a couple of things. I think Boris Johnson's actually done a pretty good job as much as people were very apprehensive given his historical track record of making some absolute blunders along the way as the foreign secretary or the London mayor roll. He actually, I think, has handled himself in a fairly professional way and he hasn't really done too much wrong, I don't think. So the point being, as was our baseline scenario at the beginning of the week though, as much as Merkel has sounded more friendly than Macron, again, that's expected, the end of this week has really not come out with any further progression of the situation. And so the little bit of appreciation we had in the pound yesterday, how much of that can really carry on? Well, I think a lot of that will be determined this weekend at the G7. Obviously we've got the G7 happening in Barrette's in France, this is the schedule. So it kicks off tomorrow, which is very much an opening welcome from the French president. They have an informal dinner in the evening. The main event starts kicking off then on Sunday when they get working lunches and so on. They work through the day on various different issues. And then on Monday, which is obviously a bank holiday in the UK, that's when they'll give their kind of conclusions of their debates in the closing session. So actually I think it's gonna be quite interesting to see what happens when markets reopen in the UK on Tuesday. Certainly if you're looking at the pound then on Monday to have a look what's the response has been to this G7, I actually think we'll be exactly where we were. It will be a similar type of thing. All parties want to avoid the worst case, however, we're not willing to make any concessions just yet or any changes to the backstop and the demands around Ireland. And so therefore we remain pretty much at the same point. And that to me is just what you would expect in the normal form of the process of a negotiation. The deadline still too far away, I think for the relevant movement to happen on either side. So yeah, not expecting too much to be honest with the pound movement. All right, that is it from me. Again, we'll be on about 20 minutes before Powell later. I'll come back and give you a full thorough preview for what to expect and so I can jump on and look at key levels that we'd be targeting on different types of alternate scenario, planning and whether he is hawkish or dovish or anything in between. Otherwise, have yourself a great long weekend. A reminder, we won't be on Monday but the squawk will be working as per normal on trading live. So if I don't speak to you before, wish you a great weekend. Thanks very much. Yeah, thanks and I hope everyone has a good bank holiday weekend as well. That should be a decent enough end to the week. You can see this morning, just pushing or start with equities anyway, just pushing up to their higher point and that level area, if you want to call it in the S&P massively important, just above the R1 yesterday's high, but just as a zone, probably a five or so points above that as well. It's been so key going back to the whole of the month. First really testing that on the second and you can see multiple times have come back and really just can't break through there. Where we closed the week then is massively important. Can we get above there? And you can imagine there's some stops above that point as well, whether we could get a clean break before Jackson Hole, I think would be unlikely. Yes, they are the break in the pivot, which was so key. Just being such a good line in the sand this week we broke through, came back and again this morning has found really good support. So you've got already just above and below where we're trading your key lines in the sand, your key zones if you like, 39 to 44 and then that pivot area, 18, 20, 29, 18 and 20. The low of yesterday, also the previous low that we had on the 20th and obviously 2900 just below that as well. So those are for now would be the key points that I would be keeping an eye on. Similar zone if you like for the Dax. We got up there similar time as the S&P did yesterday just before the US cash open and again couldn't quite break through and we had the interns in at the moment and one of their strategies that I actually did quite the look of was to go long Dax only if we close above this level as a whole. So can we get above there? If so then you get a faster money move perhaps up towards the high that we had back on the second. So key level, key pointer to keep an eye on for the Dax but equities in general as well. Just as we come through the first half hour of the open for the Dax starting to see trend just come in we're getting squeezed up from the low of yesterday. So that's something I would be focusing on going into the rest of the morning if that was to break to the downside then those higher zones and inequities in the US will most likely hold and we drift down as well. For the pound and I'm just gonna drag over Euro pound here I know a few people were talking about the pound pairs with the inverse head and shoulders or in here the head and shoulders and you can see we broke through that for the Euro pound so obvious level to be focusing on would be that previous neckline to have a retest of that at any point today, not too far away at all that would be an obvious point people would be looking at. It was such a good level support before yesterday helped obviously by the comments from Merkel again and I don't see out the question that we could get a retest of that today so again where we finish the day, the week will be pretty key especially going into the weekend I expect a bit of movement there not just for the Euro pound but the pound in general drag over here the weekly chart and these lines are actually drawn on from when we did the Q&A on YouTube on Wednesday and was talking about different scenarios for the pound and we're saying how it's a bit of no man land really and I think the next big leg down would either have come if we break obviously 120 and close below but if we can drift back up so you see this trend line that broke through on the weekly going back to 2017 here the break we saw beginning or sort of beginning of August, end of July just be having a mark up around there if not quite one, yeah I suppose I was gonna say not quite 124 probably comes in just a bit before there that's certainly somewhere I would have of interest still a fair while before we could get to that point you've got to imagine that whole zone would be a place where the buyers I mean the sellers would be attracted to get in again quick look elsewhere we'll have a move over to just minimise that we'll have a quick look over at gold which you can see this trend line that has drawn up and you've got to have it on it's really getting squeezed from both directions here now you've got a nice, let me just draw that nice trend line from there the lows are well respected you just can't get below that whole 1500 area on the futures so again where we finished a week will be key can we get a break of this level this zone that's held so well for the whole month apart from that spike down but again we didn't even close the candle below will be very important if we can get a break above that trend line and again we were talking with the interns yesterday break above that close above the trend line and a drift back higher up to the top end of that mini range that we were talking about in yesterday's briefing which is still held up towards 15-18 as well quick look over at oil which drifted lower yesterday and that trend line which we've had on which had been choppy on the breakthrough on Wednesday and again Thursday kind of acted as a very good resistance point for that move lower now what to expect well I think unless we were to really push higher today I'll just put this on this, it's 2.40 and you can have a look at this trend line on as well the fact that we have broken below this trend here I think is quite a bearish thing for oil so unless we have a decent enough push higher and I'm talking back towards really the R1 yesterday is high I think we can start to drift lower again in this market just purely technically and from that psychological point that we just after breaking through as I mentioned yes, choppy on Wednesday Thursday first test strong, second test very strong and we you know since then pushed down quite a bit so unless we were to really have another go at you know getting up here and then closing above you've got to favour overall the downside and oil while the volume is lower you know this is one of the nice kind of patterns I like to see just in the morning where you get a nice trend like this 1, 2, 3 and looking for the continuation of the recent trend of the market over the last couple of days to the downside so a break of this trend to target really the lows of the day ideally you want the volume to be there but it's this one to keep an eye on as well for that kind of a quick look over just the euro intraday I know we're not far away from the low of the year so that's somewhere to focus whether we could really get a push down before the back end of the day or not will be interesting but if the comments are resembling the ones from yesterday I think we get that low the year today and again can we close below that that will be pretty key a failed test like 120 a failed test of that would be a bullish signal and if we can close below that August and yearly low in euro today well it's not looking too good for next week as well we sort of broke trying to break out the bottom end of that range but you can see again now just a failed test of doing that I don't think there's anything wrong with just having sitting on your hands ahead of the afternoon to be honest very quiet morning the first data point of interest is not until 130 with the retail service for Canada which we know it can go up and down and nothing can really change as well hope you all have a great bank holiday weekend any questions as usual please do let us know and I'll catch you all next week