 Hello and welcome to CMC Markets on Thursday the 23rd of November and this quick review of the week beginning the 27th of November. Before we get on to looking ahead to events for this particular week let's have a quick look back at the record highs once again new record highs that we've seen from US markets and also the consolidation that appears to be going on with respect to European markets particularly the DAX which still remains at some very interesting levels after the two successive weekly declines that we've seen in the middle of this month. Now it is finding a certain degree of support around about 12.875 and I think for me that's really the key level which will determine the next move in this particular index because at the moment it has appeared to be pressured by a slightly higher euro. I think a large part of that that fact that the euro's strengthening is because the dollar is under pressure pretty much across the board against a basket of currencies after the latest Fed minutes appeared to suggest that there are some on the FOMC who are becoming increasingly concerned about the prospect of additional rate hikes on top of the December one which still remains pretty much a done deal and I think the uncertainty surrounding the course of 2018 Fed rate rises I think revolves around the fact that ultimately we don't have any significant clarity on who's going to be on the voting committee in around about two or three months time that's simply because there are still four vacancies on the Fed board for the Fed governors and we don't know who's going to fill those vacancies but also I think the divisions that we're seeing with respect to inflation expectations could throw into doubt the anticipation that markets think that there will be two or three rate rises next year from the Federal Reserve I don't think we can assume anything at this point in time and I think that's really why the dollar is starting to come under a significant amount of pressure and in turn that's what is pushing the yen up, it's what's pushing the euro up and it's also to a certain extent pushing the pound up and that could act as a little bit of a weight on European equities in general so certainly going to be keeping an eye on 12,876 on the top side looking at these two peaks around just below 13,200 from the rebound that we've seen thus far this week from the lows that we saw on Monday. If we look at euro-dollar we can also see that that's at a very very key inflection point I'm particularly interested to see how it responds around about 1,880 which is the October highs we have broken back above the neckline of this head and shoulders reversal but we actually haven't taken out the right shoulder and until we do so I think there is a concern that we could start to drift back down again there's also the fact that the oscillator is still significantly overbought but that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't go higher a break of 1,910 and we're looking once again at the highs that we saw in September a similar story on the pound against the dollar looking at this particular chart here 130,133,40 area I think is a really key level for me on the cable 133,40,133,50 if we see the breakthrough there then we're looking at really 134.5 and then potentially again the September highs as we saw in the euro-dollar so that's really I think that you know the preview in terms of the currencies what are we going to be looking at for the key events later this week well first and foremost I think we can need I think we need look no further than the OPEC meeting that's due later in the week on the 30th of November there was an awful lot of anticipation this time last year as to whether or not OPEC members will be able to coalesce around production cuts there was an awful lot of skepticism that they will be able to do so nonetheless we can see from this Brent crude chart here that oil remains and has been in a significant uptrend since the lows that we saw in June and at the moment I think even if OPEC does disappoint with respect to extending those production cuts beyond March 2018 you know the support still remains quite a long way away we're looking at we're talking around about four or five dollars away a word of warning though we are starting to approach some very significant resistance levels on the top side and we can see that based if we based on this if we change it to the weekly chart now on the weekly chart we can see that we've broken above the 200 week moving average on Brent crude and that's the first time we've been anywhere near close to the 200 week moving average since the middle of 2014 so it's a significant level that we're trading at but before we get too bullish on this particular contract this Brent contract I would want to see confirmation of a similar break on WTI and if we look at the WTI chart we can see once again as in the case of Brent crude we're in a nice little uptrend what's slightly different about this is that even though we have broken higher on on that Keystone pipeline use the closing down of the Keystone pipeline because of an oil spillage what we haven't done and I think this is very important is we haven't broken above the 200 week moving average and I think what really needs to happen for us to suggest that we're going to see further gains in the oil price is we need to see a weekly close not only of the 200 week moving average on the Brent contract we also need to see on the WTI contract as well but that only really brings us back on the WTI contract to the peaks that we saw in 2015 so even if we do break above the 200 week moving average on WTI we've still got a significant area of resistance around about $61.80 and if we do get above $60 a barrel on WTI what does that mean for extra shale production will that trigger an excess of further production from US shale producers and serve to keep a cap on it but once again you can't go against the trend the trend is your friend in this case here so if we do get any dips back down then the likelihood is we're going to find a nice degree of support around about 54 and a half 55 dollars a barrel in crude oil prices also another thing to keep an eye out for later this week is UK bank stress tests and that's going to really shift the focus to Barclays Bank share price the Lloyds Bank share price the RBS share price now we can see with Barclays we have seen a significant rebound from the November lows but I think in terms of looking at these stress tests I think it's quite likely that they're going to be much more onerous there's going to be a much much greater focus on certain banks exposures to consumer credit so that's really going to show up potentially in Lloyds Bank's stress test results will they pass them because ultimately with the purchase of MB&A Lloyds is very very exposed to the UK consumer credit market as is Barclays through it's it's Barclay card operation so I think Barclays share price have a quick look at the share price here and we can see that at the moment we haven't closed this gap that we saw once we broke down from October here so I think any upside in Barclays share price is likely to be tempered around about 195-196 it is starting to look a little bit overbought doesn't mean that it can't go any higher but certainly in the context of these lows here and these highs here Barclays is probably punching towards the upper end of its recent range if we look at say for example RBS that's been the significant outperformer this year but it does appear to be starting to show signs of being a little bit tired on the on the top side now if we also look at the key support level on RBS the likelihood is that we could see RBS fail the stress test when it comes out on Tuesday it failed the stress test last year as well so it won't be the end of the world but certainly I don't think it's going to send a significant signal of confidence overall despite the fact that we have been trading nearly pretty much two to three year highs when it comes to RBS that would appear to suggest that it is at risk of a little bit of a correction back down to around about 260 if you also look at the Lloyds banking group share price as well again that's one of been it's been one of those particular share prices has not really done an awful lot since the Brexit referendum we can look at all this this daily chart here and we can see that the highs in May has come back an awful long way but again it's pretty uninteresting when it comes to the overall scheme of things so looking at Barclays looking at Lloyds and looking at RBS to look for any significant share price movement there we've also got third quarter US GDP the interim numbers there showed that the US economy grew 3% in the third quarter despite the impact of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma we should start to get a little bit more data from that period so there was a risk we could see a little bit of a downward revision to that we're also going to see additional PMI data from China Japan Europe and the US now the German and French PMIs that we saw this week were very very good I would expect that to be continued to be confirmed is very very strong numbers but ultimately manufacturing sector does appear to be doing very very well and we'll also be starting to sit when we'll also start to see November PMIs from the UK as well so I would expect to see them post some decent numbers as well so that's it for this week thanks very much for listening and Spike Houston talking to you from CMC Markets