 Very good morning to everyone. It is Monday the 5th of August. Hope you all had a fantastic weekend. Looking at the calendar here for the main scheduled events from a fundamental perspective, what we've got to look out for, so I'm going to run you through that. But before we go into that, obviously there is one big story to talk about this morning that broke last night, and that is the latest coming out of Beijing asking state-owned companies to suspend imports of U.S. agricultural goods. They've also allowed the Yuan to weaken past seven. The remnant be falling past seven per dollar for the first time in 11 years, and that's created then on the biggest down days of the year so far in Asian Pacific equity markets, and therefore the futures markets here have been under pressure just following suit. So DAX, having moved lower overnight, has found some support around its respective S2, but down about 128. The NASDAQ's already down off 100, and the S&P down towards the 2,900 handle at the moment. So obviously I'll let Sam go over the technicals in more detail, but a real clear reflection of risk off trade this morning, so with equity index futures lower, T-notes and gold already quite sharply higher. I can't think of many times actually when I've come in in the morning and I've seen T-notes up nearly a point on the session. They're up about 25 and a half at the minute. Very rare, but just given the gravity of the latest development here and the kind of escalation, if you like, on the Chinese side, it's almost like they've hit their stop now with Donald Trump, and now it's really got serious. And gold obviously elevated on the back of this, renewed risk. Gold futures top right, just finding a bit of resistance, thus far at the R2, but up about $11.5 trading at $14.69 at the moment. So yeah, interesting time. So let's get straight into the headlines. What exactly has been happening? Here it is, China hitting back at Trump. You'll remember last week Donald Trump tweeted the idea about proposed additional 10% tariffs on another $300 billion of Chinese goods imports from September 1. This was after almost like a 24-hour turnaround of those US officials leaving Shanghai. It caught a lot of people by surprise last week about how quickly the president acted in such an aggressive way and apparently against what he was being advised to do from the likes of Stephen Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, and this is what's caused this now reaction from China. So a few charts to have a look at to really put this into context. And this is looking at the Chinese Remnant B falling past a key $7 threshold. You can see here, we've flirted with this level a couple of times. We got very close to it not that long ago. I'm trying to think when it was now, probably about a year ago or so, and certainly when we had that fears of a hard landing going through 2015-16 with China, that was also a level. And you can see that there's quite a clear understanding or there has been in the markets that China want to protect that seven level. It's quite symbolic in a way. And certainly given the fact that we've not really, the Chinese currency hasn't been that weak, you've got to go all the way back to the right in the midst of the global financial crisis at the time. Now, reasoning for protecting it is predominantly down to this idea that once you kind of pull the plug on seven, you know, does seven quickly become seven and a half and eight. And therefore, then the weakening of the local currency has ramifications for any assets held in that or dominate denominated in that currency. And therefore, people quickly pull their capital. And this leads to large scale capital outflows, which further exacerbates that situation quite quickly to the detriment of the country. One of the things then to be aware of is that, and I know most of you are familiar with this, but for those who are not, this is one of the biggest gripes, of course, by Donald Trump is because China operates what an FX kind of training band, which is basically 2% either side of a daily fixed rate that they have. So obviously in Trump's mind, this is kind of manipulation in its purest. But as you can see here, you've got basically where the the onshore exchange rate tends to trade in comparison to the band. And as you would imagine, the price sits pretty much neatly in the middle. All the way through, you can see Q4 of last year, the first half of this year, we had that little episode. Remember, we had the bit of downside in the market, concerns renewed about Trump then escalating the next section of tariffs here. But dramatic moves seen overnight, and that's pressured it right to the bottom of that trading band floor, as you can see. And notably going through that seven level. Now, one of the things that China has said, they've attributed basically the yuan move to protectionism and expectations on additional tariffs on Chinese goods. So helping to weaken their currency a little bit. And what they're saying is that they can maintain a steady currency, i.e. looking to verbally calm those fears about mass capital outflows. Now, in mid-2015, devaluations spurred capital outflows and did destabilize global markets to quite a significant degree. Though tighter capital controls are believed to be this time round, what makes quite a substantial difference and that in order to help prevent a similar rerun of what we had about four and a half years ago, essentially, as far as what a lot of analysts are saying this morning. So point being is that China are suggesting can manage this process of having a weaker currency. This obviously then starts to go against what Donald Trump has been doing because it shows that they're further looking to, you know, a lot of people talking about the weaponizing of the currency this morning. But the other major and significant headline that came this morning was this one. Beijing asked its state-owned firms to suspend U.S. crop purchases. You know, so this again, we know this is the more surgical way of China really hitting Trump where it hurts, which is right at the core of his political base. And obviously incredibly important as we go into the run into the 2020 campaign, which is now underway. How have this, how have the Americans tried to counter at this? Well, I was looking at some interesting charts at the weekend. Vietnam and South Korea have seen massive jumps in exports directly coming from U.S. imports as they try to look the Americans for some alternative way to try and buy still some, a lot of these products that are produced in that region. But for China, you know, this really is a substantial increase in the way of which they have been relatively passive up to this point. This certainly brings about one very interesting question. And the main thing I'm looking out for today is when Donald Trump wakes up, what does he say? That's probably in today's intraday session going to be the singular most market moving event of today. And going off the data, obviously there was those tragic, you know, mass shootings in America. So he is operating from North American hours. So I'd say you need to start watching your Twitter feed from 1140. It's what the data tells me. 1142, to be precise, is when Trump tends to start tweeting and stuff that's more sensitive to financial markets. And particularly, I have no doubt in my mind Trump first tweet is going to be about this latest development. Now, my opinion is I don't think he's going to buckle. I think if you're looking for Trump to come out later and say, hang about, I love China and China, we're going to cut them a great deal. And you think he's going to manage to fall out? I think actually, I think he wants a little bit of a stock market route. We've got up to record highs. I think if you bump the stock market down a little bit more, akin to the correction we had at the beginning of 2018, at the end of 2018, you know, let's really start heaping the pressure on Powell, because that ultimately is the stronger force here. If he can really create this multiple sequence of rate cuts from the Fed, I think then he gets what he wants. So I don't think Trump's going to buckle, not particularly given the events as well that have happened at the weekend. I think politically he needs to show he's in control. I don't think he's going to flip it that quick. So if that is the case, potentially, as we go into the North American crossover, could there be a renewed second phase to this move? Certainly that could be the case. But quite to the contrary, if I'm wrong, then I'd be looking for a reversal of a lot of these moves, equity recovery, gold pulling back as well as the 10-year, in that respect. A couple of bank comments. What have they said? Well, you have had JPMorgan, they've come out this morning. They now see China letting Yuan sink through seven per dollar. Their new call is at 7.05. Analysts at Goldman Sachs have also issued a new Yen forecast of 103 per dollar in the three months. That's from their previous forecast of 107. Dollar Yen this morning in the futures is trading at 105.65. So again, if you look at dollar Yen over the course of the last, well really going from the first of August to where we are at the moment, we've moved from 109 to 105 as a substantial move. But as I say, next three months outlook, Goldman is looking for 103. What does that mean for rate expectations? Well, I did have a quick look this morning at the CME Fed Watch, looking at the federal funds rate futures in the short end. And actually now, instead of pricing in 100% for a 25 cut in September, the 50s come back again. It's like a broken record. Here we are again. Markets are now pricing in similar setup to really on the percentage split of what we had from the last meeting. We're now looking at a 16.5% and growing probability here of a 50 basis point cut to one and a half to 1.75%. So yeah, definitely worth keeping an eye on. Quickly elsewhere, some other news stories to be aware from the weekend. Just generally speaking, people are talking about oil. And I guess oil at the moment is a trade-off between supply shocks from the Strait of Hamus. This comes after essentially another Iranian tanker seizure. However, this is being overshadowed by the magnitude of the development that's happened overnight. So if anything WCI crude at the moment is down 60 cents, I think if anything, people are becoming rather accustomed to the situation with Iran. I actually read quite an interesting article in the New York Times at the weekend, which had a really neat infographic. And it was basically saying that everyone's still buying Iranian cruise and they're still pumping it because they're just basically they're just turning off the surveillance equipment and the ship's just going to deliver where they need to go and deliver from Iran's perspective. And obviously who's buying that? Well, the Chinese, the Indians, the usual kind of suspects in that respect who are not so keen to adhere to the U.S. sanctions or what the U.S. are requesting. So yeah, at the moment, the broader trade rhetoric overshadowing any of these supply situations. And then over in the U.K., I'm sure you've heard plenty of Boris ramping up his cash pledge for the NHS, you know, multiple billion pounds worth of boost. That with infrastructure, with putting more police on the street, you know, everyone's kind of reading between the lines. This is pretty much as clear as you're going to get of him lining up then this general election. The only uncertainty here is the timing of when exactly is that going to happen. The only deadline we know definitively is that it's still October 31st for the time being for the elapses of Article 50 and the threat of a no deal situation. So yeah, that's what I'm going to say on that point. Going back to then the week in focus, so Monday is actually taking on a new realm of significance. Certainly the biggest thing here is going to be the response from Donald Trump. Again, can't stress how important that's going to be today. Secondly, just quickly talking overview for the U.K., obviously the British pound is still at a fairly precarious technical level, very close to multi-decade lows again, close to that post media referendum low. Two things really, or three things we're looking out for. You've got U.K. Service PMI coming out later on this morning, half past nine, and obviously the service sector particularly important for the composition of economic growth in this country. That is expected to be kind of stagnating more than anything. So rather than the contraction, very evident in manufacturing and construction, service is still just keeping its head above water. But then on Friday, we get U.K. GDP. And obviously from a more rolling basis, we're looking for basically flat growth in the U.K. And I was thinking about this at the weekend and just the way that Boris has been going about his political business. I actually think if you get a weak service PMI and a weak GDP, I actually think that plays in Boris's hands in a rather weird way. And it's kind of a bit of a Trumpism where I think the worse the economy is at the moment, the more he can pass accountability to the previous government under Theresa May and the more reason there is to hold this general election. So I think that, I don't really think that that's a bad thing for him if the economy is buckling under the pressure of the growing likelihood of a no deal. I actually think that's a positive for his messaging from the communication point of view. So there are two key points. The political one obviously looking out for other updates surrounding Boris is the third point. Otherwise, other things to be aware of, a couple of central bank decisions, you've got plenty actually. You've got the RBA and the RBNZ and the RBI all coming out this week. For the RBA, after they've cut rates a couple of times now, we're actually looking for them to hold pat for the moment. So that'll be coming out tonight going into Tuesday morning. You've then got the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. They're looking to cut this time round. I think markets are pricing in another cut by about November of this year. So definitely interesting for training those Antipodean currencies, obviously for the Aussie in particular monitoring of this trade war is going to be particularly key from a fundamental perspective. And then from China themselves, you do actually get Chinese trade balance data on Thursday. So again, particularly interested to see what is more likely or not the decrease in the rate of exports and imports out of the country. And it's more about an assessment of the severity of that slowdown that's key. And also the inflationary aspects, PPI we've seen decreasing. We've seen basically a divergence between Chinese PPI falling and CPI rising given the swine flu at the moment impacting particularly pig farming and consequently pork and food inflation has been quite high in China. So interested to see how that's also faring at the moment, obviously putting a bit of a squeeze on the consumer but very evident about the manufacturing exports slowdown from the decrease in PPI. So yeah, that's pretty much it in the summary. German factory orders and German industrial production is also something I'm going to be watching particularly closely just given the fact of the current situation that Germany is facing economically, which has been a contraction in those type of areas as well and how critical they are for now understanding about the next move of the ECB. All right, if you want this update though, the full graphic is available on my Twitter feed. You can see my handle just pointing to it down here. So if you do need that, just feel free to jump on there and check that out. All right, gonna hand you over to Sam, he can look at the charts and give you his technical fill for the week ahead. Thanks very much guys. Have a good week. Hi guys, good morning. We all had a good weekend I guess the best place to start here is going to be with stocks which pushing lower really since last night, but of course continuing the move from last week and there's some levels to be aware of as usual. We'll put the strategy report out this morning, get that in before midday and the trend line from the low that we had at the back end of December last year, you can see that's come in and we also had that second test the 3rd of June and we were tweeting about this talking about it seems that everyone had this trend line up and obviously the first test we get of that, you get a decent enough bounce and good level of support. So it'd be key to see whether we finish the day or week, wherever it may be in concerns to this trend line here, definitely one to have up really looking pretty strong levels below that. If that was to go where I'd expect to see pretty sharp move lower, you've got some support just below there from going back to the 18th and 13th of June at 84, 28, 84 and 66 but from a level I like the look of here around 28, 54, give or take a couple of points either way. Around about there seems like it could be a good enough target if that trend line was to go to the upside if we just put this more intraday in terms of looking at points of interest above where we're trading. Friday's low, you can see we found support there before breaking through, made that resistance along with the S1 that's something that I would keep an eye on today, dropping it down to 15 minutes you can see we haven't really had that proper retest of that level, good enough area of support this morning before pushing through. So the S1 something I would be keeping an eye on and of course even intraday this trend line which would come in around 2900 as well today, something I would have marked up. With this obviously as I mentioned gold is pushing higher and just putting this onto the weekly chart you can see just how high it has come and level was not seen for quite some time if we just draw horizontal line literally where we're trading now around 1450 just a bit above. Last time we were trading at this price was 2013 May time. Will we get 1500? Let me just see what you guys think about that, got quite a key level certainly on the futures where we just couldn't get above back in 2013 1488 around there so that is like a good enough resistance really breaking out of this multi-year resistance point from 2016, 17 and 18 around 1361. So it does look like the only way is up 1457 obviously holding relatively well in the first few tests of that but we're just trying to spread our wings here in gold and we are above that yearly high. Looking more intraday I think you do have to favour the upside so while there could be opportunities to get short or whatever looking at interesting points of support. Yesterday's or I have to say Friday's high and Thursday's high you can see the breakthrough of that this sort of trend line here would be something I'd be keeping an eye on with trending higher so I'll just be you know I did mention obviously looking for it to go long but breaks of these kind of trends here would make you maybe not want to say okay R1 was my my original plan but depending how it would break this trend line may make you think otherwise and also trend lines coming up from those lows coming to around that same point so around about 1458 which of course was that longer term level anyway I do quite like the look of as an area of support to get long again in this market which is of course just been drifting higher at some pace well to be fair not even drifting higher going higher at some pace over recent days oil another market which has seen a decent enough move recent time however we are starting just to get squeezed in from both directions here just going to make this chart a bit tighter removing the pivot so you can see coming from those lows again that that low is the same one as the U.S. equities from December last year see we're just finding support on that last week and also from the upside as well getting relatively squeezed in depending where you place that trend line so for oil certainly from a more medium term opportunity waiting for the break either way I think would be key you can see last week we had a decent couple of decent opportunities on break of trend lines and if we were to to come back to this one they're broken at all this week I'll be looking for you know another strong reaction around there so that will come in around 5650 which is also some low points that we had from last week looking more intraday and just put this on a 15 minute you can see we are just drifting to the downside from those highs so again we'll be looking to to get these trend lines on I know the the volume not necessarily going to be there this morning but perhaps later on as we get squeezed in from from both ways bit of a zone to be aware of below where we're trading here we'd get this as a bit of a rectangle you can see from Friday morning to afternoon and that coming in around 5470 to around 60 on the futures that's a pretty key level support if that was to to go wouldn't be too long I would imagine before you see the yes one and this longer term trend line as well for the pound typed in the wrong code there for the pound I'd still be waiting to see can we get a break below this key level this is make this a bit clearer so you can see we are testing the level from 2017 beginning of March if we were to really get a break below that we couldn't last week if we were to get a break below there 120 is obviously the main target that people will be looking at I've said it a couple of times if we were to get any retracement doesn't look like we're going to the trend line break that we had coming in around 124 would be an obvious place to to take profit for anyone that did get long or anyone that wants to get short again around there so that's somewhere I'll be looking at but a break below these lows that we had last week 120 would be the obvious target euro had a decent recovery to the back end of last week post the fair we haven't completely reversed the the move from seven o'clock that we had on Wednesday there's not too far away and that would come in around the R2 we are just also we also do have some interesting levels you can see here just above where we're trading on the higher the day that would be keeping an eye on the low of the 25th which is the ECB we broke through that trend on the FOMC and that would be coming in futures anyway around 111 72 ish so that would be somewhere I'd have marked up on the on the chart for those that do want to see a continuation of this longer term trend to the downside where could that come in well you've got all those highs from yesterday for Friday which are really holding strong we can't just get that that confirmation below there so if we were to get a serious close below then maybe we could get that continuation but at the moment it does seem resilient to to any push to the downside I'd also have this trend line on while not necessarily respected too well this morning you can see it's still intact in the third test just coming in there so if we were to get you know a proper break of that then then sure with those eyes from Friday then I would start to be looking to go short but for now price is getting squeezed in and I'll be more comfortable waiting for higher up around 1170 or a break of that trend quick look over the DAX again just finding resistance back on S1 if that was to to gather pace worth getting a trend on from the previous low that we had this morning the previous area of what was resistance to statting and support now for the DAX half hour into the open as usual any questions please do let us know we'll get the strategy report out before midday so if no questions then or later please do let us know but I hope you'll have a great training day and a good week ahead