Five Things World Business Will be Talking About Today

(Bloomberg) 

The world’s leaders gear up for G-20, Barnier’s hard line on Brexit, and ECB minutes are due. Here are some of the things people in markets are talking about today.

G-19 plus 1

President Donald Trump’s disdain for the status quo on world trade is likely to be one of the main flashpoints at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. Also on the rader is North Korea and its recent missile launch, with Trump, who’s in Poland this morning, saying that the U.S. is considering “pretty severe things” to retaliate. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to put the onus back on the U.S. to find a solution to the Korean problem when he meets Trump on the sidelines of the Hamburg summit.

Brexit friction

European Union Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier this morning laid out the difficulties the U.K. will face in retaining access to the single market if it goes ahead with a so-called ‘hard Brexit,’ including the end of Britain’s frictionless trade with the currency bloc. Deutsche Bank AG is not waiting for the results of the Brexit negotiations to make its mind up about the U.K. as the lender is preparing to move large parts of its trading and investment-banking assets it currently books in London to its hometown of Frankfurt, according to people familiar with the matter. There was some good news for the City of London as Barclays Plc Chairman John McFarlane said he is confident euro-clearing business would remain in the U.K.

ECB minutes

Yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting minutes revealed a split amongst policy-makers on the timing of balance-sheet normalization, while suggesting the bank plans to maintain gradual rate hikes. Today it is the ECB’s turn as it publishes its account of discussions at its last policy decision. There is little new that is expected as there has already been a raft of comments from the region’s central bankers since that meeting. At 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time European Central Bank Governing Council members Jens Weidmann and Ewald Nowotny will also discuss the future of the euro in Austria.

Markets drop

Overnight, the MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index lost 0.2 percent, while Japan’s Topix index also slipped 0.2 percent as the yen rose against the dollar following the Fed minutes. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index was 0.6 percent lower as of 5:45 a.m. with banks the only bright spot in a wide-ranging slump. Yields on German 10-year bonds rose above 0.5 percent for the first time since January 2016. In the U.S. S&P 500 futures were also slipping.

Coming up…

Tomorrow is Non-Farm Payrolls day in the U.S., and ahead of that we have ADP Employment Change data due at 8:15 a.m. today, with a drop to 185,000 expected. Weekly initial jobless claims numbers are due at 8:30 a.m. That number is expected to be broadly unchanged from last week’s 244,000. Also at 8:30 a.m. we get the U.S. trade balance for May. At 9:45 Markit Services and Composite PMIs are relased with the ISM Non-Manufacturing Composite coming out at 10:00 a.m.