{"id":125220,"date":"2018-04-16T06:35:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T10:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=125220"},"modified":"2018-06-01T15:40:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T15:40:52","slug":"investors-unmoved-by-syria-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2018\/04\/investors-unmoved-by-syria-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Investors unmoved by Syria attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
April 16, 2018<\/div>
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Article by ForexTime<\/a><\/p>\n

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Heading into the new trading week, investors across different asset classes feared that the U.S.-led strike on Syria would become the new catalyst to sell risk assets. However, Saturday\u2019s operation, that also included the U.K. and France was a limited one, and intended to be a one-off as President Trump declared \u2018mission accomplished\u2019.\u00a0 Many feared the attack would probably lead to a broader confrontation, but the conducted strike was not strong enough to bring Russian retaliation. The limited reaction in currency markets on Monday shows investors are relieved somehow, and expect no significant escalation.<\/p>\n

The fall in oil prices is another sign of relief,\u00a0after the geopolitical tensions last week drove Brent to its highest level since 2014. Another source of pressure came from U.S. energy companies; seven oil rigs were added in the week to 13 April, bringing the total count to 815, a level last seen in March 2015. Despite the 1% fall in early trading, I think there\u2019s still a lot of risk premium in current prices, and with further ease in geopolitical tensions, I expect to see an additional drop below $70.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be a busy week ahead for financial markets, specifically on the earning front, with about 60 S&P 500 companies due to report results. So far, 70% of companies that already reported actual results managed to beat Wall Street expectations on EPS. If the positive surprise didn\u2019t diverge from current levels, there\u2019s a high likelihood of companies reporting 20% growth in earnings. Tax cuts are the undoubtedly the key factor behind the expected earnings growth. Additional factors were also in play, including the dollar\u2019s weakness which boosted multinational overseas earnings, and the rise in the price of oil, which is expected to boost earnings growth in the energy sector by 79%, according to FactSet.<\/p>\n

In such a positive earning season and with better valuations compared to a year ago, there\u2019s a good reason for the bulls to take over control. However, this also depends on how much noise we\u2019ll have in the background, whether it Russia-U.S. relations, Middle East geopolitics, trade tensions or higher inflation expectations; the list goes on. There\u2019s also a lot of data releases this week to attract traders\u2019 attention. In the U.S., the economic calendar focuses on housing and manufacturing sectors, but retail sales figures released later today are likely to move the dollar the most. Chinese first-quarter GDP results will be released on Tuesday and markets expect a 6.7% growth YoY. Trade tensions will be an important factor to focus on over the coming quarters, but so far China continues to grow at healthy levels. Any upside surprise in China’s GDP could potentially send the Aussie higher.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Disclaimer:\u00a0<\/strong>The content in this article comprises personal opinions and should not be construed as containing personal and\/or other investment advice and\/or an offer of and\/or solicitation for any transactions in financial instruments and\/or a guarantee and\/or prediction of future performance. ForexTime (FXTM), its affiliates, agents, directors, officers or employees do not guarantee the accuracy, validity, timeliness or completeness, of any information or data made available and assume no liability as to any loss arising from any investment based on the same.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Forex-Time-Logo\"Article by ForexTime<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

ForexTime Ltd (FXTM)<\/strong> is an award winning international online forex broker regulated by CySEC 185\/12 www.forextime.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article by ForexTime Heading into the new trading week, investors across different asset classes feared that the U.S.-led strike on Syria would become the new catalyst to sell risk assets. However, Saturday\u2019s operation, that also included the U.K. and France was a limited one, and intended to be a one-off as President Trump declared \u2018mission […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125220"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125229,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125220\/revisions\/125229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}