China ready to work with Trump to boost ties – Xi Jinping
Let’s not forget that President Trump is also occupied with meeting his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. According to Xinhau News Xi has said he is ready to work with Trump to boost China-US ties.
‘We have achieved results on Greece’ – eurogroup head Dijsselbloem
As the eurogroup of finance ministers meet to discuss Greece, there seem to be some hopeful signs that an agreement could be on its way. Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem has said ahead of the meeting that it has achieved results on Greece although there will not be a total political deal today.
The US may be in the headlines at the moment for the attack on Syria, but as mentioned previously, there is some key economic data out later in the form of the latest jobs figures.
Analysts are expecting US non-farm payrolls to show a rise of 185,000, a drop from February’s 235,000. But there is a chance the figure could be much higher, to judge from this week’s private sector jobs data from ADP. That report showed a better than expected 263,000 number, and while the correlation with non-farms is not consistent, it could mean there could yet be a surprise on the cards. CMC’s Hewson again:
Over the last few months there hasn’t been much more than a 50,000 gap between the two since October last year, which suggests that we’ll likely see a fairly strong number above 200,000, maybe in the region of 230,000.
The wages figure will also be widely watched, since that is an important element in the Federal Reserve’s thinking when it comes to interest rate decisions.
Agenda: Busy day sees UK trade and US jobs data, Mark Carney speech
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.
Donald Trump’s decision to authorise airstrikes on Syria after this week’s chemical attack has understandably spooked markets. With growing tensions between the US and China over North Korea after the country launched another missile this week, signs that the US could also be at odds with Russia over Syria has added to the unease. Michael Hewson at CMC Markets said:
Today’s military action against Syrian airfields after this week’s chemical gas attack, shouldn’t have been a surprise after Secretary of State Tillerson’s remarks that recent events required a “serious response” however the timing was, coming so quickly afterwards. The action adds a complexity to geopolitics that wasn’t there before given Russia’s support for Syria and Trumps pre-election pledges to try and repair relations with Putin.
The US would now appear to be on a collision course with Russia as Tillerson went on to add that there was no prospect that Assad could remain Syria’s leader in light of the use of chemical weapons, and markets in Europe are likely to reflect this escalation in tensions with a lower open and higher gold prices as safe haven assets attract capital flows.
Gold added more than 1% to $1264 an ounce, its highest level since November, while Brent crude jumped 2% to a one month high on concerns that growing military action could hit supplies.
But with the US suggesting the Syria move was a one off, some of the early knee-jerk reaction has abated, and Brent is currently 1% higher at $55.54 a barrel. Japan’s Nikkei reversed its initial losses to close up 0.4%, while European markets are expected to open only slightly lower.
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Our European opening calls:$FTSE 7290 down 14 $DAX 12194 down 37 $CAC 5110 down 11$IBEX 10499 down 20$MIB 20246 down 51
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Elsewhere the week is ending with a burst of activity.
On the agenda are UK industrial production and trade figures, the latest Halifax house price index, a speech by Bank of England governor Mark Carney on financial services, US non-farm payrolls, not to mention a Eurogroup meeting on, among other things, the latest attempts to resolve the Greek debt crisis.
China Xinhua News
