Summary:

• European stock investors launched new week in downbeat moods

• UK manufacturing PMI beats expectations

• ISM manufacturing index to be released in the afternoon

Moods across the European stock markets can be named mixed at the beginning of a new trading week. It is worth to note that the Russian equities resist this downward pressure and as a result the RTS Index (RUS50) is one of the few stock benchmarks from the Old Continent to post gains on Monday. JPY and USD are the outperformers from the G10 group while Antipodean currencies (AUD and NZD) are the biggest laggards. Mexican peso is trading lower as Obrador is said to have claimed victory in the yesterday’s presidential elections. Precious metals trade lower in general while oil performs mixed.

At the end of the previous week heavy rains pestered China causing floods in some provinces. One of the regions affected was Sichuan province where major cryptocurrency mining hub is located. Local media agencies reported that in turn “tens of thousands” of mining devices were damaged.

Even as the headline did not move at all in June business optimism dropped to the lowest level in seven months mainly on the back of trade war concerns, Brexit as well as the currency fluctuations. Higher input prices flagged by managers should not be a surprise given a heavy increase of oil prices.

Germany is having a bumpy onset of the second half of the year as the future of chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government has been called into questioned. As a result, both the euro and German stocks are trading notably lower in the morning, but in case of the former the sell-off has been contained at least thus far.

The Trump’s tweet is responsible for oil underperformance seen in early trading on Monday as it suggests US President keeps seeking ways to bring oil prices down. Notice that Trump mentioned Saudi Arabia would increase its output by 2mbpd, this is more or less the amount of spare capacity the country holds currently.