Kamala securing Democratic nomination

The USD remained relatively stable yesterday while in the FX market, JPY strengthened further against the USD. After a quiet Monday, we expect the markets to slowly start their engines and today, we expect fundamentals to lead the markets. In the US political scene, Kamala Haris seems to be securing the nomination of the Democratic party for the US presidential elections, after President Biden abandoned his bid for the candidacy and given that she was able to secure about $81 million in funding over the past days and has more than enough pledged delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination.

As for US stock markets, we note that the earnings season is in full swing. We tend to focus on the tech sector this week as we get the earnings releases of Microsoft and Alphabet on Tuesday, IBM on Wednesday and Amazon on Thursday. On a fundamental level, market worries for the tech sector were intense before last week ended, as the Biden administration told allies that it’s considering using the most severe trade restrictions to China regarding semiconductors. The outage of Microsoft tended to intensify worries on Friday. Should the market worries intensify further, we expect the adverse effect on tech shares to widen.

Nasdaq jumped yesterday, after hitting the floor on the 19470 (S1) support line on Friday. Given that yesterday, the price action of the index has broken the lower boundary of the upward channel guiding it since the 19 of April, signalling an interruption of the upward movement, we switch our bullish outlook in favour of a sideways motion bias. Also please note that the RSI indicator is near the reading of 50, implying a rather indecisive market, which could allow the sideways motion to continue. Should the bulls take over, we could see the index breaking the 20100 (R1) resistance line and taking aim of the 20800 (R2) resistance level, which is an all-time high for the index. Should the bears take over, we may see the index’s price action breaking the 19470 (S1) support line and aim for the 18900 (S2) support base.

Oil traders may be more interested in the release of the weekly API crude oil inventories figure later today. A possible increase in the US oil inventories tends to imply that aggregated demand in the US oil market was not able to reach oil production levels creating a slack in the US oil market. The release is to set the tightness of the US oil market to the test. Should an increase of oil inventories be actually reported we may see the bearish tendencies for oil prices intensifying, especially if the API rise is also accompanied by a report by the EIA showing an increase of US oil reserves on Wednesday.

WTI’s price intensified its downward motion on Friday breaking the 80.25 (R1) support line now turned to resistance, yet seems to stabilise somewhat during today’s Asian session. We tend to maintain a bearish outlook for the commodity’s price as long as the downward trendline remains intact, while our opinion is also reinforced by the RSI indicator which remains between the readings of 50 and 30, implying a bearish predisposition for WTI. On the flip side the commodity’s price action is flirting with the lower Bollinger band, which may slow down the bears or even cause a correction higher. Should the bears maintain control over WTI’s price, we may see it breaking the 76.70 (S1) support line with the next support level being set at the 72.40 (S2) level. Should the bulls take over we may see the commodity’s price breaking the prementioned downward trendline, signalling the end of the downward motion and then continue higher breaking the 80.25 (R1) resistance line, thus paving the way for the 84.10 (R2) resistance base.

Other highlights for the day

Today in the European session, we note from Turkey we get CBT’s interest rate decision and later we get Eurozone’s preliminary consumer confidence for July and from the US we get the Existing Home sales rate for June and July’s Richmond Fed Composite Index. During tomorrow’s Asian session, we get the preliminary PMI figures of Japan and Australia for July.