Summary:

  • Oil has bounced despite a build of 5.8M in the DOE report
  • Commodity snapshot
  • GBPUSD hits 10-month low as inflation fails to rise
  • Morgan Stanley gains after beating the Street
  • Cryptocurrencies rally as IBM open Blockchain research centre

There’s been a fairly strong bounce in the Oil price this afternoon despite the latest DOE inventory report offering little to get the bulls excited. A build of 5.8M was well above the -3.4M expected and comes after a prior reading of -12.6M. US production also rose but after an initial look lower, buyers have stepped in and caused a fairly large jump higher of more than 100 ticks by the European close.   

Oil also features prominently in our latest commodity snapshot which also features Soybeans, Wheat and Corn. The article can be found here.

Approximately two weeks ahead of the Bank of England monetary policy meeting GBP traders were offered the flat print of price growth in the UK economy in June. The reading has already undercut odds for a rate increase in August, and allowed the quid to extend this week’s drop and fall to its lowest level since September against the buck. 

Earnings season is now in full swing in the US with Morgan Stanley the latest big bank to deliver their results. There’s a lot to like about the latest trading update from Morgan Stanley with profits surging higher on trading and investment banking gains. The group’s EPS for the quarter was $1.30 – well above the $0.87 forecast – while revenues also beat, coming in at $10.6B vs calls for a reading of $10.1B.

Cryptocurrencies have been constantly advancing throughout past few days and today is no different. Over the past 24 hours major cryptocurrencies posted incredible gains. The capitalization of the whole market sits a notch above $265 billion while the capitalization excluding the most famous cryptocurrency stands below $170 billion. 4 of the 5 markets are in the green on the day, with Ethereum the odd one out and lower by around 2%. One of the reasons for the gains may be that IBM, a technology giant, and Columbia University, one of the best universities in the world, partnered to conduct a blockchain research.