Our attention is drawn to the Oil price today. We are trading at four-month lows, as the market continues to digest the surprise move by OPEC+ to restore production earlier than expected. Many were under the impression that there would be an extension of the production curbs through to the end of the year but, as per their announcement, their plan is to only continue with curbs through Q3 and then gradually phase that out over the next year or so. The reaction to the deal has seen Oil at the lowest levels since February and the $70 per barrel is the support. Some are questioning whether OPEC will actually be able to follow through with production increases.
Overnight equities had a mixed session, the S&P 500 turned green in the final minutes of trading as a rally in big tech outweighed a plunge in energy producers. A technical issue at the New York Stock Exchange resulted in erroneous trading volatility halts earlier in the day. In Asia the Nikkei is in the red but both the Hang Seng and the CSI 300 are positive.
Marketwise, as mentioned above West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.2% to $73.33 a barrel, the yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced two basis points to 4.41%, Bitcoin fell 0.1% to $69,027.54, Ether fell 0.2% to $3,764.3, Spot gold was little changed at $2350 per ounce. USDJPY opens at 156, GBPUSD at 1.2800 and EURUSD at 1.0900.
As for the day ahead we are data light we have South Africa and Brazil GDP, US factory orders, and the JOLTS numbers.
