Chinese secret weapon, BoC interest rate decision & US GDP

30 Mei 2019

Yesterday was “dictated” by the dollar but without new highs and explosive growth. By and large, consolidation at the top is continuing. For a breakthrough to new local maxima, a serious reason is needed. In theory, today's data on US GDP might be a reason for this. These are revised growth figures for the first quarter. However, analysts are skeptical enough - the majority is expecting a revision of the preliminary value downward. We also tend to the fact that the data will come out either extremely close to 3% or even lower. So, in our opinion, the dollar would rather “rush” downward than upward. In this regard, our position on finding points for sales, the dollar has not changed. Rather, the current entry points are very close to the ideal ones.

The trade war escalation initiated by the United States naturally raised a question on a retaliatory strike from China. So far, Sino actions were more than restrained, but there is a huge range of methods in Chinese to influence. We are going to talk about a secret weapon today. Everyone has heard about the volume of US government debt owned by China and the markets attention is oriented in that direction, but a blow could be struck out of the blue. China is the world leader in the supply of rare-earth elements (controls about 80% of the world market), which is crucial for many modern industrial products. So hypothetically, as a means of counteracting US aggression, the Chinese authorities may limit their deliveries to the United States, which, in turn, will have a very negative impact on a number of American companies.

The decision of the Bank of Canada on the parameters of monetary policy was announced yesterday. The rate was left unchanged. Comments of the Central Bank as a whole were cautious. The Central bank is concerned about the uncertainty due to the trade war.

All investors' attention will be focused on data on US GDP. As for our trading positions, they have not changed: we will look for points for buying of the euro and the pound against the US dollar, sales of oil and the Russian ruble, as well as buying of gold and the Japanese yen.