MTS Help Center

· The euro was under pressure on Monday ahead of a European Central Bank meeting later this week at which policymakers are expected to deliver new stimulus to bolster a flagging regional economy.

The euro was little changed at $1.10295 early in Asian trading after falling 0.1% on Friday.

The yuan weakened on Monday following China’s easing and a surprise decline in exports reported on Sunday. However, in broader financial markets, global stimulus hopes have helped lift appetite for riskier assets, such as the Australian and New Zealand dollars, which held near recent peaks.

The onshore yuan slipped 0.13% to 7.1242 per dollar, while the offshore yuan shed 0.22% to 7.1231 per dollar.

The dollar was confined to a narrow range versus the yen as traders weighed the prospect of U.S. interest rate cuts against their demand for safe-haven assets.

The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies fell 0.04% to 98.423

The dollar traded at 106.91 yen, little changed from Friday.

· U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said he canceled peace talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders after the insurgent group said it was behind an attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier and 11 other people.

President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel Afghan peace talks will cost more American lives, the Taliban said on Sunday while the United States promised to keep up military pressure on the militants, in a stunning reversal of efforts to forge a deal ending nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan.

· China’s exports unexpectedly fell in August as shipments to the United States slowed sharply, pointing to further weakness in the world’s second-largest economy and underlining a pressing need for more stimulus as the Sino-U.S. trade war escalates.

Beijing is widely expected to announce more support measures in coming weeks to avert the risk of a sharper economic slowdown as the United States ratchets up trade pressure, including the first cuts in some key lending rates in four years.

August exports fell 1% from a year earlier, the biggest fall since June, when it fell 1.3%, customs data showed on Sunday. Analysts had expected a 2.0% rise in a Reuters poll after July’s 3.3% gain.

· Japan’s economy grew at a slower pace than initially estimated in the second quarter as the U.S.-China trade war prompted a downward revision of business spending, intensifying calls for the central bank to deepen stimulus this month.

The economy grew an annualized 1.3% in April-June, revised Cabinet Office data showed Monday, weaker than the preliminary reading for 1.8% annualized growth and in line with economists’ median forecast.

· The ongoing protests in Hong Kong, now in their 15th week, have delivered a blow to the city’s tourism industry not seen since the 2003 SARS epidemic.

Tourist arrivals in the city declined almost 40% in August from a year earlier, Financial Secretary Paul Chan wrote in a blog post Sunday.

That’s the biggest year-on-year decrease in visitor numbers since May 2003, when arrivals sank almost 70% in the midst of the disease outbreak that ultimately claimed hundreds of lives in the city, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the Hong Kong Tourism Board.

· Trump’s market-moving tweets most often address trade and monetary policy, with keywords including “China,” “billion” and “products.”

J.P. Morgan’s “Volfefe Index,” named after Trump’s infamous and still mysterious “covfefe” tweet, explains a measurable fraction of the moves in implied rate volatility for 2-year and 5-year Treasurys.

Since his election in 2016, Trump has averaged more than 10 tweets a day to his nearly 64 million followers —roughly 14,000 total over that period associated with his personal account, of which more than 10,000 occurred after the 2017 inauguration.

Out of about 4,000 non-retweets occurring during market hours from 2018 to the present, only 146 moved the market.

· British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will try for a second time on Monday to call a snap election, but is set to be thwarted once more by opposition lawmakers who want to ensure he cannot take Britain out of the European Union without a divorce agreement.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has prepared plans to legally stop any Brexit extension, the Daily Telegraph reported late on Sunday.

A plan under consideration would see Johnson sending a letter alongside the request to extend Article 50 setting out that the government does not want any delay after Oct. 31, according to the report.

· German exports rose in July, data showed on Monday, marking an unexpectedly solid start to the third quarter for the engine room of Europe’s largest economy and suggesting it may withstand some of the impact of tariff disputes and Brexit uncertainty.

The Federal Statistics Office said seasonally adjusted exports rose 0.7% on the month while imports fell 1.5%. The trade surplus rose to 20.2 billion euros ($22.27 billion) after a downwardly revised 18.0 billion euros in the prior month.

· Oil rose on Monday on expectations that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, will continue to support output cuts by OPEC and other producers to prop up prices under new Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.

Prices climbed for a fourth day and were also supported by comments from the United Arab Emirates’ energy minister that OPEC and its allies are committed to balancing the crude market.

Global benchmark Brent LCOc1 was up 61 cents, or 1%, at $62.15 a barrel by 0649 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate CLc1 was up 65 cents, or 1.2%, at $57.17 a barrel.

Reference: Reuters, CNBC, FX Street