May’s last day, Nonfarm payrolls due

Morning Note

May’s last day, Mexico trade standoff, US jobs, Yuan looks to 7

And so, the time has come for Theresa May to shuffle off. Except she won’t quite as she will remain on as a caretaker PM. Boris Johnson is frontrunner. If he gets in – and we’ve detailed why we think he will – it could be a troublesome one for the pound. Votes start next week and we should be down to the final two before June is over.

Trade v Fed 

US equities continue to march higher as the Fed story is all that matters – investors are still guzzling that Kool-Aid. The Dow added 180 points, leaving it up over 1100 points from the low hit this week.  SPX rose 0.61% to 2,843. Looking first for 2870 and then 2889 for bulls. Support around 2817 and 2800. 

European equities were softer as the ECB was not dovish as expected. Mixed bag in Asia overnight – Nikkei and ASX higher, Kospi down, India flat, China weaker.  

Futures show European markets on the front foot, bouncing back modestly from Thursday’s dip. 

EURUSD failed to break out any further after the ECB meeting. After pushing up to 1.13 it’s found well-trodden turf at 1.1260 for comfort. At send time sterling was steady at 1.27 against the dollar. 

Oil has bounced after looking a bit oversold. Brent testing resistance around $62.50, the 50% retracement of the Dec-thru-Apr rally. 

Some progress on the Mexican-American talks over tariffs. VP Pence said he was ‘encouraged’ by the discussions as Mexico offered to deploy 6,000 members of its new National Guard police force, but has reiterated that the 5% tariffs are still slated for Monday. 

Fed jawboning continues but with a slightly different tone. NY Fed John Williams was more hawkish – or at least one feels more representative of the Fed’s unwillingness to flip-flop into a rate cut. His base case is for the US to grow above trend at 2.25%-2.5%. His baseline is a ‘very good one’. Not language suggestive of a cut, albeit he acknowledged risks to the downside. 

Yuan risk 

USDCNH rallied, with the yuan weakening amid concerns the PBOC is not worried about devaluation. Bloomberg reports PBOC governor Yi Gang said he wasn’t worried about the seven level being breached. Given the tensions over trade, devaluation in the CNH would risk escalation as it would be perceived with suspicion in Washington. USDCNH was last at 6.941, threatening to break out above last October’s highs around 6.97. Gang is right that no one level is particularly more important than the next, but the 7 handle on USDCNH holds a very real psychological hold over the market. If that goes we would expect Trump to counter-attack.

ECB fallout 

Markets are still digesting the impact of the ECB’s forward guidance change yesterday. The pressure to launch a new round of QE will only build. I see the market testing the ECB on this and driving it towards opening its toolkit again. EURUSD gains seen capped, whilst the relative quality of the dollar versus a world of ugly sisters should underpin the buck.

Jobs! 

Nonfarm payrolls are the headline risk event. The ADP print earlier in the week could herald a bad-un, but we’re still looking for something in the region of 180k, in line with the long-term trend. We should recall that the 27k print for the ADP number came after a whopper the month before of 271k – look for the 3-month average. Jobs growth remains solid, but this month’s print could be a tad light. Look for 100k maybe. The super tight labour market may well see hirings start to decline a touch anyway. Unemployment is seen at 3.6%. 

It’s far too easy to read way too much into a single jobs number. Remember the 20k print for Feb was followed by prints of 196k and 263k in the following two months – and had preceded by Jan and Feb printing above 300k. 

The wage data is probably more important as far as Fed expectations as it matters for inflation. Average hourly earnings are forecast to increase 0.3%. Traders likely to remain cautious ahead of the nonfarm payrolls. 

Equities 

Ferrexpo – welcome bit of good news after auditor strife and corporate governance concerns – sees material improvement in earnings – group EBITDA in 1H 2019 is expected to increase materially compared with 1H 2018. Improvement driven by higher pricing, production and sales volumes, while cost inflation lower than expected due to a fall in oil prices and the European gas price, which has partially offset by an appreciation of the Ukrainian Hryvnia versus the US dollar. 

Banks – the FCA is coming down very hard on overdraft fee charging, but stops short of ending free banking. 

Beyond Meat – last night Beyond Meat reported much better than expected Q1 results. The stock market darling shows no signs of falling out of love – shares popped 25% at one stage in after-hours trading and were last up 18% – close to 5 times above its $25 IPO price at $117.49. Losses rose to $6.6m but revenues tripled to more than $40m. Massive growth opportunity but the multiples are crazy and competitors are coming – you’re entering a space that is really ripe for the FMCG giants to take over.