Eyes on Iran peace talks as end of ceasefire deadline nears

Good morning

What a belter of a weekend.  Sun was shining which of course always makes a difference, out with the family in London on Saturday celebrating my wife’s birthday, and a fair bit of gardening which is always a pleasure when the weather’s good, although I must say I’m aching today which shouldn’t be a great surprise given I’ve don’t little in the two months since my shoulder operation.  Did watch the Arsenal match as well, their loss to Man City opens the title race wide open, promising an exciting last few matches of season. 

At the other end of the table, well if it could have gone badly for Spurs, it did.   Almost had three points in the bag after a spirited performance before conceding a last minute equaliser, Leeds and Forest winning, just looking for West Ham to win this evening and there will be some distance between Spurs and safety with time running out.  It’s not looking good at all. 

To the markets and we wake up to the news that the US have attacked and seized an Iranian ship that tries to get around the US blockades.  Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz after some suggestion they’d open it for peaceful travel.  The ceasefire deadline ends tomorrow, US officials are in Pakistan for peace talks but both sides are still too far apart.

European equities have opened lower, oil prices opening higher and the US dollar has pushed higher as the hopes of peace potentially disintegrate and fears of renewed military action build.  Still, oil remains well below $100 and the US dollar is still well off its recent highs, which does suggest there is still some hope left. GBPUSD is hovering around 1.3500, EURUSD is 1.1765 each having seen highs around 1.3600 and 1.1850 last Friday.  USDJPY had a dip to 157.60 on Friday afternoon but is now back up to 158.85.

UK PM Starmer addresses Parliament this afternoon over the Mandleson affair.  There have been calls for him to resign over claims he must surely have lied about his knowledge of Mandelson’s history and security vetting failurs but I think it is unlikely he will do so, instead he’ll plead innocence and pin the blame on others, indeed Olly Robbins of the Foreign Office was sacked last week over the scandal.  Meanwhile the FT says Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham could be on track to launch a leadership battle for the Labour Party.

Canadian CPI inflation is the main event today, overnight we’ll have NZ’s CPI and then early tomorrow morning we’ll hear the latest UK employment situation.  The rest of the week brings UK inflation and retail sales, US retail sales and EU, UK and US PMIs.  Iran ceasefire and peace deal talks still likely to overshadow any economic data.

Have a great day…

-  13.30 CAD CPI

-  15.30 CAD business outlook

-  15.30 UK PM Starmer talks

-  23.00 NZ NZIER business confidence

-  23.45 NZ CPI

-  07.00 UK unemployment