Nervous dip buying continues in equities

Chris Beauchamp IG

Uneasy calm sees stocks rise

“While the attacks in the Middle East appeared to intensify overnight, there has been little dramatic rhetoric today, leading to hopes that any renewed conflict can be avoided. But the weekend is not far off, and the US has shown a preference for strikes over a weekend, leading to some caution in markets despite a stronger open for the US. Oil prices have dropped back, adding to a positive feeling across the globe, but a potential second round of full-blown conflict looms large in everyone’s minds.”

AstraZeneca trims losses, helping FTSE 100

“There hasn’t exactly been an unseemly rush to buy today’s dip in AstraZeneca; the hit to the revenue forecast is too great for that, but the worst of the losses have been trimmed for now. This, together with a positively heroic contribution from the mining sector, has helped the FTSE 100 to claw back most of its opening fall. But such a big stumble from one of the real index heavyweights is the last thing the index needed, putting its quest to 11,000 back even further.”

Author

Chris Beauchamp

Chris Beauchamp has been with IG for four years, and in that time has become a regular commentator and analyst for the financial press and TV, with appearances on all the major financial channels as well as the BBC and Sky News.

GBP/USD remains offered; bears target 1.3600

GBP/USD now leaves behind part of its recent recovery and revisits the low 1.3600s at the beginning of the week. Indeed, Cable trades with a mild downward bias amid decent gains in the Greenback as investors remain wary of upcoming US data releases and the Jackson Hole event.

EUR/USD remains sidelined above 1.1650

EUR/USD trades on the defensive following the closing bell on Wall Street on Monday, hovering around the 1.1660 region and adding to Friday’s small decline. The pair’s pullback comes in response to an acceptable rebound in the US Dollar in a context of generalised caution ahead of key US data releases and Chair Warsh’s speech in Jackson Hole.

Gold poised to extend its bullish run

Gold surrenders part of its initial advance, although it keeps its bullish pace well and sound above the $4,600 mark per troy ounce on Monday. The precious metal’s move higher comes despite slight gains in the US Dollar and a modest pullback in US Treasury yields across the curve.

XRP surged 72%, but is the rally really about XRP?

Ripple (XRP) surged more than 72% in less than a week, its strongest rally since July 2025, as cryptocurrency prices broadly broke out. But the move has a problem: it may have little to do with XRP itself. The token's near-term rally appears to have been driven largely by a broader liquidity shift after the US Treasury expanded long-end bond buybacks, pulling yields lower and lifting risk assets.

Convulsion in credit markets

The United States government just posted a $432.3 billion deficit for July, the largest monthly shortfall since March of 2021. That single burst of red ink pushed the yeartodate deficit to $1.8 trillion, with two months still remaining in fiscal 2026. At this pace, Washington will soon wax nostalgic for the “good old days” when annual deficits were only $2 trillion.

$20 billion offered, $2 billion taken: Why Treasury doubled its buyback cap

The US Treasury moved off its own calendar on Wednesday, and that is the part worth sitting with. At 12:32 GMT, the department said it would at least double the size of liquidity support buyback operations in the 10-year to 20-year and 20-year to 30-year sectors, lifting the maximum from $2 billion per operation to at least $4 billion, effective September 9 and running to November 4.