Forexlive European FX news wrap 26 Aug – Libya halts oil production and exports

• Libya’s Al Waha Company says it will start partial reduction in production
• WTI extends gains with news that Libya will be stopping all production and exports
• Earnings in focus this week again with Nvidia
• Germany received a tip-off about potential Russian sabotage act at a NATO site
• FX not playing ball with commodities and equity performance today
• Atlanta Fed GDPNow sitting at 2%
• Germany Aug Ifo business climate index 86.6 vs 86.0 expected
• Heads up that this week is month-end
• Weekly update on interest rates expectations
• Riksbank meeting minutes
• Markets hold to a view of >100 bp of cuts for the Fed by year-end
• What are the main events for today?
• Swiss Non-Farm Payrolls 5.499 vs 5.484M prior
• Conditions for sustained USD weakness not fully in place
• Japan leading indicator -2.1 vs -2.6 prior
• Equity and bond expectations divergence likely to be bullish for the USD
• India GDP seen at 6.9% in April to June vs 7.8% in previous quarter
• Most commodities are trading in the red apart from oil

Markets:

• JPY leads, NZD lags on the day
• European equities flat; S&P
  500 futures up 0.15%
• US 10-year yields up 2 bps
  to 3.81%
• Gold
  up 0.36% to $2,521
• WTI
  crude up 2.69% to $76.84
• Bitcoin down 0.48% to $63,953

It was a classic
quiet Monday session with little in terms of market moving data releases. The
only highlight was the German IFO reading which came out basically in line with
estimates.

The only major
news was the Libyan eastern-based government declaring the closing down of all oil
fields and halting production and exports as a force majeure announced in
response to the attempts to take over the central bank by the Tripoli-based
government.

In the
markets, there’s been very little movement with just crude oil getting the
attention following the Libyan news as the price shot 1.5% higher and counting.

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.