 Good morning, hope you are well. It is Wednesday 31st of July and obviously an important day for markets because we've got the FMC later on this evening. Just to inform you, we will be covering that live by Sam and I will be here throughout the evening, doing it live via YouTube. So do make sure you join us for then. We also have a chat facility where you can ask us questions, but we'll cover the whole event in the build up, the preview, the live release and then a kind of a debrief after of how the markets have reacted. But coming back to the here and now, couple things obviously to talk about as you can see here. Trump lashing out at China as those trade talks resume, however, as I'll update you as we go through the briefing, apparently the US envoy has left. Today was supposed to be the second day of trade talks happening in China and only about half an hour ago, the latest comment out of a Bloomberg journalist suggested that China US talks have ended and US officials have left for the airport with no official comment. And so therefore an abrupt finish to these latest face to face negotiations. No official word is yet. We have had the Chinese foreign ministry say the US is the side that flip-flopped in trade negotiations during the past year, adding that progress in talks can only be achieved when the US shows some sincerity and good faith. So quite a quick finish to those talks and I would say I'm surprising. As I'm going to discuss shortly, Donald Trump went on a bit of a tweeting tirade yesterday, predominantly aimed at China. So I don't really think it's too surprising, but ultimately a breakdown once again of one of the key top level macro risks in markets doesn't bode well for just general sentiment overall. But looking at the charts this morning, one thing that's noticeable is oil's a little higher. We've had the seventh straight stockpile decline in the API data last night. So we'll look at those numbers shortly, but WTI crude as well technically breaking above some key levels. So we're up about 37 cents, 58.42 down here at the bottom. Otherwise, cable very quiet, a day of consolidation very much. So yesterday after a very big beginning of the week to the downside, that technical breach of that level, the fundamental kind of repricing of no deal has all kind of been accounted for at least for the moment. So not too much movement in the FX markets. Equities, despite the trade comment, global stock futures did see a slight move lower about 40 minutes ago. However, we still remain in slight positive territory across the board in the US futures at least some outperformance in the NASDAQ. We did have Apple report after market. We're going to have a look at their numbers, but they moved higher in excess of 4% last night. So maybe mitigating some of that negativity from the breakdown and trade sides, some positive numbers coming up Apple. However, starting off with the Asian session, few things to be aware of. Firstly, Hong Kong shares in China and Hong Kong were weighed down by news that the Politburo, which is generally the top of the pyramid in terms of who defines policy in China, they pledged to avoid applying stimulus to the property market. Brogty market, obviously under pressure given the economic slowdown being experienced in China, but China saying they're not going to backstop that with further stimulus. Then Hong Kong, the Hong Kong exchange was actually shut early today. I had to close ahead of the normal scheduled time due to a tropical storm hitting the area. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Korea, Samsung shares slid on the back of a decline in profits. Then you've had this latest breakdown now with the US-China trade talks. So quite a few negative things developing overnight in Asia. However, maybe the saving grace being the stellar performance of Apple reporting after market last night. I'm going to go straight into some of those headlines and we'll talk about them a bit more as per usual. I'll leave the charts and the trade setups to Sam. So let's start off with Trump. I was trying to think about this last night because yesterday Trump, I counted it last night. I'm not sure if he did more tweets obviously before I went to bed last night, but yesterday Trump did about, well, at the time, 32 tweets, 32 in one day. He was when he first became president in 2016, averaging about six at that time. So obviously you can expect the frequency of tweets to increase probably even further now that this political campaigning period is underway for his second term for 2020. But importantly yesterday, he absolutely lashed out at China through a series of tweets. I'll give you a little bit of a flavor here. He said China is doing very badly, the worst in 27. He's referring to the fact that their GDP is the lowest in 27 years. Then he added that was supposed to start buying our agricultural products now, but no signs they are doing so. That's the problem with China. They just don't come through. Our economy is much larger than the Chinese. Then he just goes on and on in a series of other tweets, just basically criticizing China. The one thing then, the Chinese Foreign Ministry, after these latest reports that both Mnuchin and Lighthizer have left to head to the airport in an abrupt finish to these talks, is this idea that the Chinese Foreign Ministry have said that they're not really, it's the US who are at fault. They're not showing any sincerity or good faith. Let's not forget the cultural differences between the Chinese and how keeping faces particularly important, and certainly for a Chinese government ruled in a way is under Xi's ruling. He definitely would not want to be showing or being seen to be pandering or showing concessions to the Americans, to the domestic kind of public. So yeah, complete breakdown in these trade talks. The soybean issue that Trump's talking about, this is I thought we'd have a quick look. This is looking at China's imports of US soybeans have now dropped to their lowest since at least 2004. And this is one of the things of which according to Trump that China had promised that they would continue buying. And so the show goes on so to speak. So I definitely would keep an eye out for any further developments on this matter as we go through today. But ultimately, probably as we go later on into the afternoon London time, people will be sitting on their hands waiting for the Federal Reserve announcement for later this evening. Interestingly, as well. And again, from a rhetoric point of view, you're probably going to get more of this. Those four ladies who've been targeted by a lot of the Trump contingent in regards to their being multicultural and of different religious faiths. But apparently Trump was at a campaign rally last night, and they were chanting, get her out, get her out. You're going to get a lot more of this. The point I want to make here is not really a political one. But from a markets point of view, you know, is this going to really feed through into impacting markets, this kind of quite rationally, I guess, hostile environment as was going to no doubts around this campaign period for Trump. I think not. I mean, I think everyone's aware of the status quo of what he's aiming for and who he's trying to appease to get him over the over the line politically. So the point being is as much as you're going to hear lots more of these types of stories, and it might sound quite quite outlandish. The point being is from a markets perspective, that's not really what matters for a markets perspective. It's about this trade war for the moment. And the latest with that is that talks have broken down once again. Looking elsewhere, let's have a look at Apple. So Apple shares actually rose in excess of 4% after closing bell. So a positive development for the fangs in that respect. And importantly, and we were talking about this in the the briefing yesterday about how Apple was in a quest to diversify their income stream away from the iPhone. And Apple generated less than half of its total quarterly revenue from sales in the iPhone for the first time since 2012. And I think that's quite a meaningful and symbolic shift for the company. They reported a record $11.5 billion in sales of services in Q3. So a record level, as we were saying, in the service products, which they're really trying to push at the moment. A couple of other things Apple's two major independent product lines not attached to the iPhone, Mac computers and iPads, they're only made up about 20% of the company's revenue. So what quite a few people are looking at is the fact that if you look at the wearable devices, I either watch, if you look at AirPod headphones, which have been particularly successful, these are all things that do still require an iPhone. So they can't work in isolation like a Mac computer or an iPad. So a lot of what people are looking at from Apple in the longer term perspective is they're going to have to start breaching out into having some of these products available to work on other operating systems and platforms. So removal away of the kind of Apple ecosystem in that respect to try and capture some of that other market. Revenues from the smartphone did decline 12% in the quarter of a year earlier. So we are still looking at the fact that iPhone, the iPhone 10 in particular has struggled, but Apple has said that this year's efforts to rejuvenate sales with discounts, more financing options and trading programs is being effective, at least for the time being. So yeah, good news for Apple overall. And interestingly, this ambition to restructure almost their revenue streams seems to be paying dividend at least for the moment. Looking elsewhere, a couple of other headlines to be aware of. A few people putting this around this morning, looking at the fact that China's is the highest ratio of firms in China forecasting earnings declines since 2016. This comes as deadline for companies to report their earnings is at the end of August in China. So profit warning signaling more gloom for their local economy. You remember 2015 2016 was very much defined by an era of a potential crisis of a hard landing in China. And we're just moving up in towards that kind of area now as we've got to 40% the ratio of firms that report a deterioration of first half earnings. So again, Chinese economy still warrants close monitoring from an economic data point of view as we continue to go forward. I'm not actually going to do much at all in terms of discussing the Fed, because I hope that all of you will join us this evening. 6 30 PM will kick off live on YouTube seven o'clock. London time is the main part of the announcement. We'll do a full briefing then. But overall, I did send out to the Amplify traders that the decision date guide from Bloomberg, you can have a read of that in advanced. But from a overall top level perspective, a rate cut is 100% expected today from the Federal Reserve. The baseline expectation is for 25 basis points. The federal funds features a price of a probability of that 76%. A 50 basis point cut at 24%. More importantly, is going to be the subsequent language that surrounds this rate cut about the intention of further rate cuts in 2019. That's basically the summary. We'll go into the details of exactly how they might convey that when we do the session later on this evening. Oil traders, WCI crude, probably the standout of the morning on the charts to get things underway in UK and Europe. You can see we've seen a decent breach of the high that resistance area of yesterday's price activity around its respective R1 on Tuesday. We broke through that yesterday evening and then we've added some as the API numbers last night reported a seventh straight stockpile decline. And with that, we saw a drawdown of 6 million. Expectations were for a drawdown of just 2.75 million. Cushing and draw of 1.5. Gasoline a draw of 3.1 distillates a draw of 890,000. So a full house, if you like, bullish data, the crude and gasoline this time, both supporting the same directional movement in what otherwise has been the recent weeks of conflicting signals. So a bullish kind of signal there setting us up for the DOEs which we're going to get later on. And then not sure if you caught this yesterday on Twitter, but our head of trading peers put out his latest sterling call. You know that when this happens got a pair of tension because he doesn't tweet that often, but when he does more often or not he is right. He said, I quote, sterling finally under pressure this week. I think more downside to come. I expect Boris Johnson to call a general election by the latest 29th of August for a third of October election leaving four weeks until the 31st October deadline. I guess he's justifying that on the basis that legally I think it's a period of about five weeks technically in order for a general election to take place. So he needs to announce it well before the actual deadline takes hold. Peers then adds that I expect sterling one more leg lower head of the general election on no-deal Brexit panic. He's looking for a break of that post-EU referendum double bottom at 120 and looking for a test of 115. Again looking to target the psychological handles here given the fact that my charting system doesn't even go back far enough for me to look the last time we were below 120 given the fact that was it Sam? Three decades? 35 year low when we're at 120 so you've got to go back obviously a long way to get to that point. So yeah just thought I'd point that out. Obviously you can jump on his Twitter account his handle at Peers Curran if you want to check that out and look at the annotations on the chart that he did. Calendar wise today just quickly. Obviously the Fed the main event so I would stress that given the importance of the announcement tonight because it is going to be a really interesting one there's a lot for the Fed to manage in market expectations about not so much the cut but about what they're going to do for the rest of this year that's going to make it particularly interesting. So for this morning couple things. First of all just quickly you did have Australian CPI data overnight that's already come out. Came in at 0.6 quarter on quarter and 1.6 year on year so both metrics were 0.1 high and expected hence you've seen some appreciation the Aussie dollar overnight. Going further forward into the morning you've got some German data coming up the unemployment change and rate just before 9 a.m London time you then get the flash Eurozone CPI at 10 a.m that will be important that would be an interesting figure do you keep an eye on European assets for the release of that at 10 a.m. Then though going into the afternoon you've got the DOEs but then the main focal point of the session the Fed seven o'clock will be going live at 6.30 excuse me. A couple of earnings as well just to wrap things up still pretty busy on the earnings slate from UK Europe Switzerland you've got this morning a couple of out performers Air France up two and a half Credit Suisse up two percent Airbus up one and a half L'Oreal down four percent and Lloyds in footsie down 3.3 percent at the open. US earnings to look out for today the big guys would be General Electric Qualcomm would be the ones I'd be watching most closely. Okay that's it from me let me hand you over to Sam and hopefully I'll see you in the chat room and I'll catch you guys later this evening for the full Fed release. Hi everyone we're doing well just start off with the the pound here and I just posted this in the in the chat room just trying to have a little little break higher out of this where the trend comes down from the low that we had back on Monday you can see just getting a break of that around what is coming in around 95 so only seven ticks above but we were just getting squeezed in from both directions there and you can see I decided to have the the initial break to the upside of course this is not to say we've now seen the the low of the pan and we continue to to push higher but certainly those levels we were half waiting for yesterday may well now come into play and the the low that we did have back on the Monday around four o'clock coming in around the R1 would be an area to consider of course to get through there you've got yesterday afternoon's higher 18 about 20 ticks above here which could be of interest as well to the downside and this might be more favorable looking for continuation of this pound weakness a break of this trend line here to really target the the low of the year as well could be a good opportunity of course fed day though so it wouldn't be too surprising to see us range bound choppy price action in the build-up to that data as well nothing out of the UK and you've got the Bank of England tomorrow so it might well be just to to not go chasing too much and even a break of the lower trend line not to get too aggressive but certainly that is an opportunity should we we see any increase in volume break of that trend line to target the yearly low there as well elsewhere just probably coming up to retest the level now that the briefing yesterday we were just talking when I came on about how the the S&P had just broken a trend line and it never recovered it never recovered from that the dex is really leading the way that break of the trend line and the pivots or us push lower and almost got down to the 3000 handle this morning similar in that we just put this on 15 minute we did have a break of this trend here you can see really well respected let me just put that in the right place really well respected from yesterday's low to the Asian session no to just before seven o'clock we've got those three strong tests then the breakthrough there as well be worth keeping an eye what happens when we come back to to retest this trend line at the moment that looks like it'll be coming in well we need a kind of the high of the day as well but 30-19 so that's somewhere to to mark up on the chart we're just finding resistance at the area support before that breakthrough as well for the S&P as a line in the sand I think that's as good as any with the high of the day you can see if we were to to break above the the high you've got quite a nice bit of resistance from yesterday morning as well and then if that was to push on then suddenly you're looking towards 30-24 longer term we'll do some levels as we approach the the Fed but of course if they were ultra-dubish we still have that top of that trend line coming in around 30-34 the multi-year one let's just have a quick look at that to put that on I just removed the studies there you can see that would look to come in today anyway like this you can see yeah coming in around 30-34-35 so definitely one to have marked up later on of course we'll we'll do a rundown closer to the time and during the session as well other currencies Euro just coming up to quite an interesting level with while we did spike through it last week in the ECB you can see 1204 just over the last few training sessions has been pretty key as a zone with maybe a few to side was also the high that we had back on the 24th and yesterday with the R1 and that's just coming into or just came into play a bit earlier to the downside you can see we are just starting to make these higher lows but that gives the opportunity that if the trend line was to break it's much like the pound you can get that continuation to the downside again not being too aggressive on the Fed day and the anticipation of that event people will be waiting for that but you can see again like the pound you've got those free tests or more so at least we know the market is looking at that gold as well expect to be a decent mover later on come seven o'clock and into the press conference at half seven we reached yesterday that really key level and again it is a zone much like the euro was just of key resistance going back from well I mean this is really since the middle of the month to last training day of the month today so that's something to factor in but quite a lot of highs around this point and we are just obviously testing that again this morning having found some resistance that multi-month trend line let's just get it on from a shorter period just to see if we did get a retest of that almost all where we did to be fair exactly on the point so we're looking at this around the R1 yesterday it's if it was to come in during the briefing it didn't so we came up first test of that trend line and we can't really get much better than that and that looks like it will come in again around the R1 so maybe the opportunity later is if they're ultra dovish break of that trend and looking to get up to some higher points going back to the 19th but at the moment that's holding very firm and this morning I would definitely have that that marked up on the chart as well quick look over oil obviously got the the DOE later and you can see the API and even though we did come down back end of the session really we were still elevated and looking here just on that 60 minute I'm just going to make it a bit smaller you can see we did come up to test quite a key point had a little go at trying to break through around 5850 the higher the 17th holding strong on that first test decent price action around this point in previous sessions as well from a range bound trade the pivot offers like a good area but also can we get back to at any point today around 5765 previous high that we had on the 24th and as a zone you've got the higher yesterday morning seems quite far away and if we were to keep pushing higher and this might be later on you can see a really key point around 5930 the lower the 15th we have just looked to have broken out of this this mini range that we been in for oil we were getting squeezed in as we saw from the beginning of the week that breakthrough albeit quite choppy has led to a decent push higher over the last couple of days however some of these interesting resistance points just above where we are trading quick look up the the Dax to see how we're doing on the 30 minutes past the open relatively choppy you can see yesterday's move was was was pretty strong and that break of that trend line just before the open didn't help things for the Dax or of course in in Europe in the US as well which followed suit today much more lack cluster in in movement much like the pound yesterday so after a decent move to the upside of the downside likelihood is you aren't going to get a continuation of that straight away some important resistance just above the highs of the day going back to yesterday you can see here around 130 12,177 and then just above the pivot as well you've got some quite key resistance worth keeping an eye later on any trend lines that maybe appear from those the downside much like the euro and the pound and the s&p maybe waiting for those breaks there to get the the market agreeing with any bias you had to the downside might be favorable for for the Dax rather than looking to go too aggressively short from where we're trading now as well any questions as usual please do let us know as I mentioned we'll be on from half six and myself and Anna will be looking over some of the charts in more detail then as well hope to see you later if not I hope you will have a great trading day