Summary:

• UK Brexit minister resigns

• BMW gets hit by the car tariffs

• Bank of Canada to make interest rate decision this week

Stocks in Asia and Europe advance during the first trading day of the week as concerns over trade conflict has been put aside. Russian equities are top gainers from the Old Continent. Do notice that on Friday earnings session on Wall Street will begin and the companies’ reports may steer valuations. On the FX market AUD and NOK are trading as the best of majors while USD and JPY are the biggest laggards. Precious metals advance amid weakening of the greenback. Our weekly calendar review can be found here.

Looking at the OIS-implied likelihood one may notice that a rate hike from the Bank of Canada this week seems to be a foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, even as the move has been already priced in roughly 85% there are some more reasons to expect the CAD could outperform its counterpart from the United States over the oncoming months.

On Friday, SIX, the operator of a main Swiss stock exchange, claimed that it is constructing a new system for trading, settlement and custody of virtual assets. The platform, called Swiss Digital Exchange, will fill a demand for such services. We have yet to be informed whether it will support trading of cryptocurrencies.

The ongoing trade dispute between China and US continues hitting the European carmakers. BMW announced today that it will not be able to fully absorb new duties levied on cars from US imported to China. Having said that, the company’s Chinese branch is calculating necessary prices increases which are to be announced later.

A resignation of UK Brexit Minister David Davis was the major topic over the past several hours even as the pound barely responded to such a bombshell. Davis, being responsible for overseeing the UK’s exit from the European Union, stepped down on Sunday indicating irreconcilable differences with UK Prime Minister Theresa May in his letter to her.