Thursday 3rd July 2008

With a raft of data and announcements due out today and the shortened week for the US, today could prove rather volatile.

It has now been officially confirmed that the Dow Jones Industrial average sank into a bear market on Wednesday, closing more than 20 percent below its October peak, while the benchmark S&P 500 teetered on the brink of bear market territory. In overnight trading we have seen Oil hit further highs. Jumping about a dollar, London Brent crude rose as much as $1.49 to a record of $145.75 a barrel and U.S. crude rose as much as a $1.00 to an all time high of $144.57, before easing back to $144.19.

The dollar also fell sharply against the Euro overnight, after a report the previous day showed U.S. private employers cut the most jobs in nearly six years and also on the back of weakening stock markets. In contrast the euro was well supported ahead of today’s rate decision with the BIS being a notable seller of Euro at 1.5840 for most of the morning.

Moving onto today the first notable piece of data will be UK PMI services at 9:30. With markets remaining fragile and the property market struggling I would look for this figure to remain below the ‘50’ level for June. This would indicate a contraction opf sector activity

At 10:00 we have EMU retail sales. After three consecutive falls, markets are looking for a slight increase for the month-on-month figure.

Then come lunchtime when we have the 2 big events of the week. At 12:45 we have the ECB rate announcement. As stated previously the euro is finding good support ahead of the decision, with a large consensus of market believing that a hike of 25bps is a done deal. The statement that follows (13:30) will be closely scrutinised, as the ECB has tried to tone down the significance of key expressions of late and a moderate tone is expected.

At the same time as the statement, we have the release of US Non-Farm payrolls. With Wednesdays ADP employer survey showing that the U.S. private-sector slashed 79,000 jobs in June, the largest drop sine November 2002, the market consensus seems to be for for a cut in the region of 60,000 for Non-Farm payrolls.

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