Daily summary: A tough trading session for market bulls

Fitch's decision to downgrade the US rating from AAA to AA+ proved to be the catalyst for profit-taking in global financial markets;

Wall Street is losing - the S&P500 and Nasdaq100 are trading close to 2% down with the Dow Jones benchmark retreating 0.7%. However, the second part of the session sees higher buying activity;

BigTech companies lose - Nvidia records a near 5% correction. Amazon loses 2.3% against Apple's 1.5% decline - both giants will report Q2 results tomorrow. Shares of semiconductor maker AMD trade down nearly 6% after results that slightly beat forecasts;

The ADP reading from the US private sector came in at 390k versus 190k expected and 430k previously. This confirmed the strength of the US economy and high labour demand ahead of the key NFP reading on Friday;

Stock indices from emerging markets posted significant declines today. Particularly evident were the Chinese indices where the HangSeng lost almost 2.5 per cent and failed to break through the local peaks of June;

The downward pressure also lent itself to the WIG20, which slid to 2145 pts. Losing more than 2.1%. The WSE was one of the weakest European markets today. The WIG Banks had another weak session, losing more than 1.7% today. Allegro shares dipped mightily - the company lost almost 5%;

European benchmarks including the DAX, FTSE and CAC40 lost between 1.2 and 1.3% today;

Fitch's director has indicated that while the debate over raising the debt limit may return again in 2025, stabilising debt to US GDP could lead to a renewed US rating upgrade;

EURUSD is seeing dynamic downward movement and is retreating below the psychological limit of 1.10. The dollar index rose today to levels last seen in early July;

Dynamic movements are also seen in the precious metals market, but here gold is the exception, losing just 0.3%, despite silver's declines of more than 2.2%;

The weekly reading of the change in US crude oil inventories indicated the largest drop in the history of DOE data;

However, Brent and WTI crude oil quotations are extending the dynamic downward trend. Risk aversion and cash inflows into the US dollar are putting pressure on commodities. Crude oil is losing more than 3.5% and natural gas 4.2%;

The Binance exchange has again come under fire for comments from US regulators. This time, the US Department of Justice has indicated that it is considering fining the exchange for alleged fraud. Interestingly, US prosecutors have expressed concern that such a move could result in massive withdrawals of funds from Binance, which would hit customers directly.