Summary:

• Stock markets continue moving higher as politics-related risks abate
• Commodities grind lower across the board
• Turkish lira in the spotlight ahead of the CBRT meeting later this week

Monday has brought some decent gains across equity markets so far, while commodities have remained on the back foot. However, moods in Germany have deteriorated since than as the DE30 has erased almost all its morning rises. Writing about commodities one may notice that the WTI-Brent spread is narrowing down as the latter is down 1.2% while the American grade trades just 0.55% lower. Elsewhere, grains have lost traction as well with wheat prices (-1.7%) leading the losses followed by soybean and corn.

Last week was dominated by a returning Trade Wars story as president Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from Canada, EU and Mexico. Although it’s not a new story these countries have been exempted initially and investors hoped that the issue will go away as new deals are worked out.

One of the most interesting market events this week is the CRbT meeting on Thursday. Lira has been under an immense pressure so far this year to the extent that the central bank had to deliver an emergency interest rate hike of 300 bps. In this analysis we explain what to expect from the meeting this week but also take a broader view of the situation on the lira.

Over the past several months some of the biggest companies including Google, Microsoft as well as Twitter chose to ban all cryptocurrency advertisements suggesting they pose a hazard to consumers exposing them to an increased risk. Since the start of June a Google’s ban has come into effect, albeit no without suspicions.

Finally, let us present the weekly calendar including the most important events having a chance to rattle markets.