Stocks bounce after soft start; Oil hits 1-week high

Summary:

• Indices look to recover after early weakness

• Oil pushes higher ahead of inventory data

• Top 3 charts this week: EMISS, CHNComp, EURSEK

• UK wage growth jumps, GBP remains unimpressed

• Survey reveals crypto investors not discouraged by declines

There was plenty of red around as far as equities were concerned ahead of the US open with the European morning seeing the DE30 move lower once more and fall to a new 5-month low. From a US perspective In general it appeared to be a bit of a continuation of the selling seen into last night’s closing bell on Wall Street while the latest talk on the trade front had done little to fire up the bulls ahead of the US open. However the first few hours of the US session saw a pretty marked recovery and the major US indices are now green on the day at the time of writing.  

The price of oil has made a clear push higher this afternoon with Brent crude (Oil on xStation) hitting its highest level in over a week. The market had been meandering pretty aimlessly so far this week but the recent gains reveal a clear impetus to the upside as price looks to gain traction above the $78 handle. This region around 78.20 has previously been something of a swing level and if this move above can stick then the market looks set to retest the 2018 peaks around $80 a barrel.

For the latest top 3 charts of the week we focus on the EMISS, CHNComp and EURSEK. The reason behind these choices are as follows: EMISS prices surge on rights uncertainty. Chinese stocks decline amid Trade Wars fears while the EURSEK is at a critical level after elections.

The UK tight labour market pushed up wage growth in three months through July much more than expected by economists justifying, in part, a rate hike delivered by the Bank of England last month. However, the British pound has remained just barely changed in the aftermath of the release as it is still being burdened with Brexit-related uncertainty. Three month average wage growth measured in annual terms and including bonuses increased 2.6% during three months through July beating the median estimate of 2.4% and making an improvement from the previous period - 2.4% as well. When bonuses are taken out wage growth jumped 2.9% from 2.7% and also exceeded the consensus of 2.8%.

It’s been a tough time of late for crypto bulls and today there’s been more declines in the space with all 5 markets falling lower. Dash is the worst hit and down by more than 7% while Ethereum also has a decline in excess of 5% at the time of writing. Bitcoin continues to hold up relatively well, declining by around 1%, but it is still a decline nonetheless. SharesPost ,a securities trading company, conducted a survey among cryptocurrency investors in July. According to the survey, 72% of retail crypto investors  want to enlarge their cryptocurrency holdings over the next 12 months. What’s more, 66% of mentioned investors think that crypto prices will increase over the next year. The results of the survey may be interesting, but one cannot forget that it is just a survey based on a sample and therefore may not reflect overall sentiment amid investors.