Central Banks week and the IMF head expects a crisis

Monday turned out to be a fairly calm day for financial markets. The reason on the surface is a day off in the USA. So today it will almost certainly be more volatile and interesting.

The Bank of Japan set the pace to the news background early in the morning. Monetary policy parameters were left unchanged. The press conference will be somewhat later than the publication of this review, so if any interesting details come up, they will talk about them tomorrow.

Today will be interesting statistics on the UK labor market. Considering how disastrous the data on the British economy last week was, one should not expect any positive. Nevertheless, we continue to believe that Brexit is the main driver of the pound, and statistics in the current reality can lead only to local movements. Accordingly, weak data, of course, will provoke sales but are unlikely to lead to the formation of a trend. This means that purchases in intraday oversold areas remain relevant to us.

Let's get back to the events of yesterday. Perhaps the most significant was the opening of the oil market with a gap up. The reason is concerns about the supply on the market. The fact is that Iraq and Libya drastically reduced oil production. In Iraq, because of protests, in Libya, because of armed groups that blocked the pipeline. And although it is very likely that these force majeure are temporary, we recall our recommendation to buy oil, which continues to be relevant in the current conditions.

We also continue to be supporters of the impending crisis, or at least the strongest correction in the US stock market. So it was nice to note the replenishment in our ranks. The head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, in her last interview, compared the current situation to what was happening in the world on the eve of the Great Depression. A key common feature of the 1920s and the present situation is excessive financial squandering. According to the head of the IMF, depression cannot be avoided. The whole question is only in time.

In this regard, we recall our recommendations on buying safe haven assets (gold in the first place and Japanese yen in the second), as well as the “trading idea of the decade” - in the sale of shares of high-tech companies in the US stock market.