U.S. and China Flags

Is It Too Late for a Trade Truce?

What’s in Today’s Report:

  • Is It Too Late for a Trade Truce?
  • Weekly Market Preview (All About U.S./China trade)
  • Weekly Economic Cheat Sheet

Futures are modestly lower on digestion following Friday’s big rally, although there was also more soft economic data and a slightly negative U.S./China trade article.

German Manufacturers’ Orders missed expectations, falling -0.6% vs. (E) -0.4% and it’s yet another disappointing global manufacturing datapoint.

A Bloomberg article Sunday afternoon was a mild negative as it lowered expectations for a broad trade deal at this week’s talks, but there was no new news revealed.  To that point, we need to all brace for an avalanche of U.S./China trade headlines as we approach the Thursday start of senior-level talks, but cutting past the noise, the expectation is for a “Trade Truce” so anything that contradicts that expectation will be a negative for markets.

Today there is no notable economic data and two Fed speakers: Kashkari (10:20 a.m. ET) and Powell (1:00 p.m. ET).  Powell is clearly the more important of the two, but he’s giving opening remarks at a movie screening about the Fed (seriously) so I don’t think he’ll say anything market moving.