Markets

• Wall Street traders drove stocks higher as data showed the US labor market is holding up despite concerns about risks stemming from President Donald Trump’s tariff war
• Nikkei index +0.8%; Shanghai Index +0.4%; Hang Seng Index +0.7%
  • The aggregate volume of futures on Chinese 10-year and 30-year government bonds both fell to their lowest levels since February on Tuesday, according to data from the onshore financial futures exchange
  • Initial public offerings and additional share sales in Hong Kong have fetched $26.5 billion so far in 2025, compared with just $3.8 billion a year ago and the most since 2021, which was a record year
• S&P500 Index +0.6%; Nasdaq Index +0.8% yesterday
  • U.S. stock indexes closed higher on Tuesday, helped by gains in Nvidia and other chipmakers
    • Investors awaited possible negotiations between the United States and its trading partners for more clarity on Washington’s tariff plans
  • The rise in job openings reinforced the Federal Reserve’s assertion that the labor market is in a good place
  • Dollar General Corp. surged after increasing its annual guidance, helped by luring more higher-income shoppers looking for deals
  • Broadcom Inc. began shipping a new version of its data center switch chips that can boost the efficiency of AI accelerators, aiming to take a bigger role in the booming market for artificial-intelligence computing

Commodities

• Brent for August is down USD 0.3/b at USD 65.4/b this morning after increasing by USD 1.0/b the last trading day
• Oil prices slipped in Asian trade on Wednesday, weighed down by concerns of increasing OPEC+ output and tariff tension that threatens the global economic outlook, though worries about Canadian supply provided a floor
  • Supply risks around the Alberta wildfires appear to be receding, at least for now, due to rainfall
    • Oil producer Canadian Natural Resources restarted production at one of its sites after halting production last week due to fires
• Preliminary production numbers from a Bloomberg survey show that OPEC production increased by 200k b/d MoM to 27.54m b/d in May
  • Some OPEC members had already been producing above their targets, reducing the actual supply increases in the market
  • In addition, some members, including Saudi Arabia, fell short of production targets
  • Following large supply hikes for June and July, the group’s output should continue trending higher at least for the next couple of months
• Inventory numbers from the API show that US crude oil inventories fell by 3.4m barrels over the last week, gasoline and distillate inventories grew 4.8m and 761k barrels, respectively
• US President Donald Trump has signed an order doubling tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from 25% to 50%
• Dutch TTF nat. gas and UK NBP nat. gas prices increased by 2% the last trading day