 Okay, very good morning to you. It's Tuesday the 20th of October. I hope everyone is doing well Just a reminder don't forget to like and subscribe to the YouTube channel really appreciate all the engagement Always feel free to leave a question if you have one after any of my briefings are absolutely happy to help as and when I can but just getting straight into things and let's look at how the markets are shaping up this morning and Relatively quite open actually in the European session This comes after we did see a bit of seesaw price action last night And I guess starting from a chronological point of view you can see here Looking in the center right-hand chart. That's the S&P 500 future And you can see that mimicked by the other US indices NASDAQ in the center in the futures We did see a move lower from around 7 7 30 last night We did see a bit of a late-stage recovery into the closing bell But generally then finishing lower losses ranging from our 1.4 to 1.8 across the major three indices the Dow The S&P and the NASDAQ now. What was the catalyst there? Well, a lot of the attention still remains on the US stimulus talks, of course That still really is one of the defining kind of topics which is dictating intraday sentiments So once again, we need to be monitoring that with great vigilance as we go through today's session The stimulus deal with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is not sounding imminent based on comments from Pelosi and committee chairs according to sources Close to the White House Democrats and that came out in Washington Post last night And that's what caused that late selloff that was seen into the final few hours of US trade However, there's been some further twists in the plot if you like and overnight The US Chief of Staff Meadows spoke with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin on COVID-19 relief and said there had been progress But that no one is quote popping the champagne corks just yet That was coming from Fox News So, yeah, obviously you've got to look at the type of sources as well that you're getting these kind of somewhat contradictory Headlines, but at the moment, there's still an air of apprehension in the markets on will they won't they? so for the moment I still Long-term I actually think when I say long-term, I mean in the coming weeks I still don't think they're going to get anything done prior to the election being so close now But that doesn't mean that markets won't remain still quite sensitive to the will they or won't they type scenario as News headlines start to hit the tape So I would interpret them pretty much as that matter of fact It seems like they're trying to show that both are willing or be it very gradually To come to the table because no one wants to see that they've been a hindrance to a deal that Ultimately could help the general public at a time where you're trying to cajole your base to vote for you in a in a populous election so in this sense the main bottom line here is that These conversations are in flux. There's no real set timing One would believe then that probably Mnuchin and Pelosi will be speaking again But given the timings it will probably be based later on London time this afternoon If not into the evening and markets will remain sensitive to that type of commentary nonetheless But looking elsewhere what other things that we've had a quick look at the aftermarket earnings Last night. We did have IBM. We just obviously one of the bigger market cap names to report They're actually you can see here an aftermarket hours finished down about 2.9% They posted double digit cloud revenue growth But did say that some customers are deferring some projects And it is that kind of matter of fact of the uncertainty around the global pandemic at the moment Which is clouding the kind of future of what they're able to foresee has meant that they did not issue a forecast for the current quarter And so their shares reacted a little bit negative to that Development in the overnight Now otherwise in the overnight session a couple things elsewhere in Japan Australia From Australia the RBA minutes noted the board discussed the case for additional Monetary easing to support jobs and the overall economy The Aussie is a little bit softer going into the European open down around 27 pips in the futures Trading sub its S1 which has provided a bit of an overnight area of resistance If you're looking at that currency pair and then over in Japan Reuters exclusive I don't think this is particularly that surprising not much in a way of reaction in the yen But the Bank of Japan are believed to be set to cut their growth and price forecast for the current fiscal year at Next week's rate review according to sources familiar with the thinking and that comes as again the coronavirus pandemic Ways on the economic recovery at this point in time. So that was kind of your overnight session Overall though as far as this morning's concerned, it's pretty flat The Dixie is unchanged and that is reflected in the major currency pairs which trade Similarly likewise cable finding a bit of resistance here in the center top chart around its pivot level And I'll get into some Brexit headlines in a moment and when I think about that for the day ahead But otherwise in terms of stock futures as I said a little bit of recovery late in Wall Street We've kind of generally gone sideways in the overnight Asia-Pacific session albeit Just coming off those lows that were seen at the close In the u.s. And we trade minor positive, but overall the Dax A slight negative at the moment after that minor gap up that was seen in the recommencement of electronic trade T-notes Close to unchanged similar case for putting futures in the fixed-income space a very quiet overnight oils been grinding out back to the upside despite some of the The commentary that we had from yesterday with OPEC, which I'll go into as well in a bit more detail shortly And for gold We are seeing recovering from the overnight It was a little bit of a blip lower in the middle of the Asian session at around 2 30 a.m Failed to be sustained though volumes just generally a little bit thin at that time Breaking through the prior days ranged low probably just helping exacerbate that that price activity, but we're back to where we were Really at the close of war street last night training at 1905 at the moment So I wouldn't over interpret the six dollar loss in gold at this present point in time all right going to go through then a couple of other news stories and first off going to talk about Trump and vaccines and co vid So where are we with this at the moment? So I'm going to jump to here Reuters reporting then that U.S. President Trump is heading to the battleground of pennsylvania today With hopes of rekindling the 11th hour surge of support that powered his surprise 2016 victory again A lot of these battlegrounds were pretty much a clean sweep for trump and hence the reason why he He kind of stormed a victory in 2016 despite losing the popular vote because of the key nature of those electoral college votes and in the u.s Obviously at the moment you are seeing Wisconsin other battleground states are posing a bit of a headwind for him at the moment just given the fact that co vid numbers have Started to increase This in itself continues to be a real headache for global markets overall And it's probably what's capping some of the upside kind of more positive sentiment because millions of europeans at the moment are facing tighter And ever-increasing tighter restrictions From london paris vienna All-enforcing stricter curbs and with island last night coming out and enacting some of the region's toughest measures in mainland europe so far wales will impose a two-week So-called firebreak lockdown from friday Which is basically everyone apart from non-essential workers has got to stay at home So it's pretty much back to where we were back into the march An april main stringent lockdown that we saw So a lot of that is generally capping. I think just run away upside type of price activity Obviously a lot of people looking at The vaccine situation, which is another of course determining factor on how people perceive then the impact of the virus And at the moment maderna in a wall street journal Peace came out overnight and said the federal government Could authorize emergency use of the company's experimental covet 19 vaccine in december Contingent though if the company gets positive interim results in november from a large clinical trial So again, this is one of the Companies that's been at the forefront of trying to get a vaccine through the system and out there as quickly as possible And markets do keep a close eye on this and and would be sensitive to any further Acceleration or delay of vaccines from these types of companies so worth keeping an eye on But going back to trump we talked about pennsylvania One thing trump has done overnight as well He was quoted from yesterday as really lashing out against anthony fowchie Who's the kind of top white house corona virus task force member? irrespective of the fact that He's he's very reluctant to fire him He has called him a disaster In an attempt then to defend his own handling of the corona virus pandemic so at the moment You know, it's a tough one for trump Because those numbers of cases are deteriorating getting worse. I mean Increasing hospitalization rates and subsequent deaths in those key areas That will really define the election so at the moment I think this is as to be expected from donald trump and you're going to hear a lot more of it He's going to try and pivot away and reframe attention Away from any accountability of his hands and his decision-making process Of what's led then to this current situation of the outbreak in in the u.s particularly in the midwest at the moment, so This is very usual Approach from donald trump if you go all the way back to 2016 whether it's russia, whether it's north korea Whether it's iran and bolton, whether it's now anthony fowchie and in the pandemic trump loves throwing A team member under the bus because ultimately then that means that he washes his hands cleaned of any type of responsibility It was there for not mine. So tried and tested tactic I don't think this is really too much of a big deal But it definitely is worth pointing out from the context of obviously a looming election in the coming weeks and on that point Interesting developments. I'm seeing at the moment on Real clear politics and this is looking at the aggregated kind of polls nationally that we're seeing And biden still maintains a fairly significant lead. You can see the rcp average spans at 8.9 in biden's favor however Couple of things I want to want to have a look at I mean that's on a national level You can see if anything there's been a divergence more recently as we've gone through Really the month of october so far biden's continue to Eek out a further near 10 point lead. However in the battleground Areas the ones that really count Wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, north korea, florida, arizona those of which as you all know trump has been Doing the circuit trying to cajole sentiment at the moment as we know pennsylvania this evening That has been actually very slowly But narrowing of late and that lead for biden now is down to just 4.1 So it's quite interesting because on a national level biden's Getting a greater lead but on a focused level biden's lead is actually shrinking and actually if you look at then the betting markets You can see how sensitive they are and this is kind of the The smart money if you like and this is definitely more of a perception of where market expectations probably lie Is that there has been now Convergence back in toward what had been pretty much a 70 30 split and biden's favor has been narrowed by almost 10 points now Still biden favorite, but now more like 60 40 than 70 30 that we were seeing just over a week ago or or so interesting point here is that the Basically the the televised debate which is the final one which is going to happen on thursday night london time going into friday morning So it's going to be around 2 a.m. In the morning They have made an actual rule change because you remember there was no second debate Because of trump having covet the first debate was a bit of a mockery of the whole system because everyone was shouting over Everyone and trump wouldn't let biden get a word in sideways And so the rule change that they've done is to have a two-minute mic Silence for each candidate to speak on certain key subjects As you'll know a debate is hosted where they have a definitive kind of topic list And actually they're going to mic silence each other from the actual The broadcasters who are running the event So trump has agreed to that that is going ahead and definitely then this could be An interesting final twist in the towel perhaps as we go into the final run into the actual election itself But but yeah, as I was saying the the actual betting market has been moving a little bit here in recent days Making it more of a contested race than this kind of runaway blue wave scenario that we were thinking two weeks ago and what was really Underpinning quite a big rise in markets at the time and low volatility given the fact that that would have been a more Clean cut election the more these these lines converge The more disruptive and the more uncertain protracted the election might be and therefore the more negative it might become We don't necessarily need to wait for the election if these lines continue to To narrow toward one another you might already see some of that downside weight And if you overlay rising covid cases A lack of fiscal stimulus coming out of congress these could be key catalysts then for a little bit more downside under those circumstances All right, moving over to the uk. Um, where are we with brexit the never-ending story? Michelle Barnier has said is willing to start work on text Intensified discussions, but the uk have said that you still needs to make a fundamental change in approach to the talks And have refrained from engaging into new dialogue just yet however, he used Chief negotiator barnier has reportedly this morning in the times newspaper Given indication that the bloc is prepared to see to uk johnson's demands Regarding concessions to get a deal particularly on fishing Three brussels officials this was in the ft last night speaking on condition of remaining anonymous because they weren't authorized to speak publicly Have said that they expect negotiations to resume in london by the end of the week and so Yeah, pal. I think the pound chart really says it all about What the market believes is the outcome of this current impasse that we're facing which is It's complete An utter political posturing nothing more than that um from a david frost the uk um negotiator for brexit I think there's no other strategy at this point to basically stand off knowing them that the actual more definitive deadlines Are really not until the end of this month if not mid november then mid december and then legally binding the end of the year So I would follow the same approach if I was a strategic advisor to the p.m I'd be saying let's just sit here and do nothing and I know that sounds um Rather careless, but I think that that overwhelms then The the nature of what's happened with this whole debacle, which is now it is a game of brinksmanship And I wouldn't expect any real concession or movement on the actual deal in itself Until something comes so at this point, I would expect the uk to stand off um Europe as is being intonated if they start to concede to some demands then perhaps that brings uk to the table but Generally speaking, I don't really see too much in the way of heavy downside and sterling as a risk here in the immediate term And this type of situation of the twoing of varying comments that we're seeing I think will continue for the time being at least for the coming coming days um elsewhere then a quick word on opec oil prices this morning Not really doing too much of a great deal. I mean if you actually look at the price action with we're generally in a range really between 40 50 and 41 50 Opec plus panel made no recommendations on monday to change prior policy for 2021 according to three sources as expected But obviously there were some outside expectation building given the diplomacy dialogue between saudi arabia and russia had Intensified to a point that hadn't been seen really until opec took that pretty historical measure to do the deep cuts that were enforced Then this was going back to april of this year So they haven't decided that they want to kind of move the needle as yet despite some of the demand concerns Which the opec secretary Coined as anemic and as we've just discussed Coronavirus cases globally are worsening at the moment which is going to impede demand if further restrictions start to be imparted globally So it's one to watch. I'd say they're standing off at the moment It's kind of like a central bank communication tactic They don't want to fire all their bullets at once not unless the price really starts to collapse And then you'll start seeing them unleash a few bullets at that point talking about they could change So I think it's all as expected Opec plus did say full or partial lockdowns this winter could put all demand at further risk Again as expected, I think their next meeting will be held on november 17th around a month from now So don't worry too much movement on the back of any of those developments Not so much for for this morning at least anyway Um, then the final stock story I wanted to mention and then we can talk about earnings as well to wrap things up Goldman Sachs They're poised to pay more than two billion dollars to the doj In the ongoing one mdb probe And that's going to push goldman's tally of penalties now to around five billion dollars, so I've not I mean, I don't track This ongoing story. I haven't done so for a little bit of time But the part The accord part of international action will let the parent company avoid u.s. Criminal Conviction according to people familiar with the talks The payment to the justice department Broadly in line with the bank's prior reserves and analyst estimates so I guess the point I want to make here then is that These fees these penalties are growing to What otherwise would be quite astronomical numbers, but the point being is that The number in itself and what the doj have gone for is in line with the bank's prior reserves and analyst estimates so Perhaps not too much in a way of actual market reaction to that in their stock price And it's worth Tracking those today. They are just shy of five percent of the dow Jones industrial average. So they're fairly large all right the Earnings picture. What does that look like today? Well pre-market. You've got proctor and gamble At an aftermarket. You've got Netflix. They're probably the two headline ones to look out for There are other companies and I will be sharing that in the amplify live chat room With all of the details that you need for all of those Otherwise, let's have a quick look at the calendar. What's on the agenda for today from a fixed calendar point of view Very quiet in the uk european open You get the us building permits housing starts coming later on this afternoon You get the api all open trees this this evening. And so nothing really there To a great deal. That's a real catalyst. I would say for for market Sentiment on the intraday. I'd still say probably things much more focused on the stimulus situation Which has been ongoing of course over the last couple of sessions speaker wise Bank of england speaker at 10 30 and then you've got two voting members williams and feds koalas speaking This afternoon which feds evans and non-voter speaking later on at 6 p.m. London time chat talk to him for any fixed income traders as well And don't forget you've got the wci november futures expiry Coming but of course the contract we've been looking at the front month now already in the deck Okay, that is it. So yeah any questions at all. Let me know if I can help otherwise I'm going to wish you guys a good day and let you get on with the session. All right. See you same time tomorrow