In mid-morning trading, the FTSE 100 is ten points higher, while bitcoin continues to reverse after last night’s surge above $13,000.
Equities are moving steadily higher this morning, although caution persists ahead of the G20 meeting. Upward progress has been almost absent this week, as the excitement of last week and the shift to dovish stances by Mario Draghi and the Federal Reserve has given way to nervousness about the outlook for a US-China deal. Investors will recall that equities rallied in the wake of the November G20, but then dropped sharply – there will be fears that a rerun of this is in the offing, particularly if Trump comes away from Osaka determined to impose a significant round of new tariffs on the Chinese economy. If anything is likely to drive the Fed towards a rate cut in July, it is an
intensification of the US-China trade war.
Bitcoin’s sharp moves higher have brought out the sellers, disappointing those who hoped for a straight-line move back to the previous record. But the direction of travel is clear, with the short-term pullbacks of April and early June likely to be replayed in the coming weeks. Bullish momentum remains strong, with Facebook’s Libra move providing the fundamental rationale for a revival of hopes for the future of cryptocurrencies.
Ahead of the open, we expect the Dow to start at 26,600, up 64 points from Wednesday’s close.
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