China makes concessions, Johnson's manifesto & Societe forecasts

On Monday markets were waiting for the successful completion of the first phase of trade negotiations between the US and China. This time, a positive signal was China's willingness to increase the punishment for violating intellectual property rights. China's regular violations of these rights that particularly irritated the United States and largely hindered negotiation progress.

Information about the victory of the Democrats in Hong Kong also helped to relieve tension in the financial markets, as there is hope that this conflict can be resolved peacefully.

Against the backdrop of such news, the decline in safe-haven assets seemed quite understandable on Monday. However, while we do not see any reason for global repositioning, we will use this decline in gold and the Japanese yen as an opportunity to buy safe-haven assets cheaper. Moreover, there is a “Trump factor”, which literally can turn the situation upside down. For example, sign the bill on human rights and democracy in Hong Kong or blame China for intransigence, etc.

In addition, the global crisis is still potential. For example, analysts at Societe Generale expect a recession in the spring of next year. According to experts of the bank, the next recession in the United States will be triggered by a sharp reduction in company profits, which, in turn, will be caused by the rapid acceleration of labour costs.

Yesterday was pretty successful for the British pound. The fact is that on Sunday, Boris Johnson has launched his party’s manifesto, in which he promised before December 25 to submit to the parliament an agreement on Brexit, agreed in October with the EU. According to surveys, the Conservative Party is now supported by 42% of voters, and the Labor Party - 29%. That is, with such a scenario, there is no risk of Britain leaving the EU without a deal, but the growth potential of the pound is far huge. So we continue to give preference to purchases of the pound, but until the announcement of the election results, we do not expect strong directional movements in the pound and recommend adhering to oscillatory trading, that is, buy the pound from hourly oversold zones and sell from hourly overbought zones.

As for our other recommendations, today we will sell a pair of USDJPY, buy EURUSD, and also sell oil.