Brent Oil Rebounds Above 50 Dollars

Good morning,

- Dollar extends gains after Fed official supports Sept rate hike.

- Greece and lenders strike upbeat tone, deal seen on bailout. Both Greece and its lenders said yesterday (on Tuesday) they were optimistic they could broker a deal within days on a multi-billion euro bailout, striking a surprisingly upbeat tone on a process previously fraught with bitterness. A bailout worth up to 86 billion euros must be settled by Aug. 20 -- or a second bridge loan agreed -- if Greece is to pay off debt of 3.5 billion euros to the ECB that matures on that day. Wrapping up a day of talks in Athens, Greek Finance Minister Tsakalotos said negotiations were going better than expected. In Brussels, a Commission official said they were 'encouraged' by progress..

- $AUD was the best performing major vs $USD on Tuesday with +1.29% spot returns while $CHF was the worst performing with -0.95% returns.

- Brent Oil Rebounds Above 50 Dollars, Commodities Stabilize.

- The dollar extended gains against the yen and euro on Wednesday's opening after Atlanta Federal Reserve President Dennis Lockhart expressed support for an interest rate hike in September. The euro slid to a two-week low of $1.0847. Lockhart, a voter this year on the FOMC, told the Wall Street Journal that it would take "significant deterioration" in the U.S. economy for him to not support a rate hike in September.

- China now runs 4 of the world's 5 biggest banks. China has become a banking powerhouse. Four of the five largest banks in the world are Chinese, according to SNL Financial's latest global bank rankings. It's a big change from the past few years when only two Chinese banks made the top five... The only non-Chinese bank remaining in the top five is HSBC, which is headquartered in London. It fell several spots to position No. 4 this year.

- $USDCAD climbed 5.0% over the past month as WTI Crude Oil Futures fell 19.4% over the same period.

- New Zealand's unemployment up slightly at 5.9%. The unemployment rate increased to 5.9 percent in the June 2015 quarter (up from 5.8 percent), Statistics New Zealand said today. At the same time, there were 7,000 more people employed over the quarter (up 0.3 percent). “Even though employment grew over the quarter, population growth was greater, which resulted in a lower overall employment rate for New Zealand,” labour market and household statistics manager Diane Ramsay said.

- Top event risk over the next 24hr: US ISM Non-Manufacturing Composite (14:00 GMT), Australian employment (01:30 GMT Thursday).

- In the oil market, $30 is the new $50…Even as oil bounces back, analysts say market fundamentals are very bearish, and it would not be surprising to see crude take a temporary dive into the $30s per barrel in the next several months. "There's no reason why oil won't go down to the $30s. That's the level that will really shut in current production and have a bigger edge than current capex (cuts) will have on the oversupply," said Edward Morse, global head of commodities research at Citigroup.

- IMF: 'Significant work remains' on review of Yuan in SDR, proposes delaying any change in SDR to September 2016..Yuan accounts for 0.6% of international debt securities, Yuan made 'substantial progress' on international use since 2010..

- JPM thinks that EUR/USD is close to break below 1.0885/70 (minor 76.4 %/pivot) which should trigger another sell-off. "The latest failure to clear key-resistance at 1.1099/1.1120 (daily trend/minor 76.4 %) leaves the market at great risk of extending the downside," JPM argues. "A break below 1.0885/70 (minor 76.4 %/pivot) would most likely trigger the latter, but only below 1.0744 we'd receive confirmation that 1.0072 (76.4 % of the 2000-2008 rally) is back in focus," JPM projects.

- Watch for today: EU Retail Sales, US ADP Jobs, US ISM