Log in to today’s North American session Market wrap for September 19
Today’s story was one of cautious optimism for global trade, as both Washington and Beijing struck a more constructive tone.
President Trump described the talks with Xi Jinping as “positive and constructive,” while adding that progress had been made on “several important issues.”
That shift in rhetoric provided a relief bid across risk assets, even as broader market themes remained volatile.
And despite all the classic diplomatic talk, Markets are still awaiting for actual concrete news but for now, we will content with the current words from Xi and Trump which don’t sound too pessimistic overall.
As long as they keep discussing, progress can be made but the path is still to deglobalization amid a growing economic cold war between the two superpowers.
In that aspect, the latest Global acquisition of US Treasuries data, China moved to slash its UST holdings — now at the lowest since 2008 — is a reminder of lingering financial tensions beneath the surface. On the other hand, Japan and the Uk boost their acquisitions by quite a lot.
Canada also reopened its trade dialogue with the US, another sign that tariff-heavy relations could see small steps toward easing.
The US Dollar raging back higher is also one of the themes of today’s session and will have to be tracked closely looking forward, as a potential double bottom could now be coming in play.
Commodities also surprised to the upside, not such a shocker when seeing the better tone around global trade as seen in the headlines, but overall, a discrepancy of a USD rising higher and Gold/Silver also rising is giving an interesting picture.
Overall, these flows keep coming at the cost of US treasuries which are the denominator (and getting sold off aggressively amid a not-so-dovish FED).
An interesting term that could be in play is reflation – I invite you to look this term up which corresponds well to the current flows.