On Tuesday July 30, sterling dropped to $1.21 against US dollar, the lowest level over two years, due to the further increased worries on a no-deal Brexit after the new Finance Minister Sajid Javid announced spending extra £1bn for no-deal preparations.

On Wednesday July 31, the US Fed announced a rate cut on its benchmark interest rate by 0.25%, considering the “muted inflationary pressures” and “the implications of global developments”. The rate cut took the federal funds target range down to 2.00% – 2.25%.

On Thursday August 1, the Bank of England voted unanimously to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.75% and lowered the annual economic growth forecast to 1.3% for both 2019 and 2020.

The US-China trade talks ended on Wednesday July 31. On Thursday, Trump said in his tweets that the US will place 10% tariffs on another $300bn of Chinese goods from September 1.

  China CPI for July will be announced on Friday August 9, with an expectation of 2.7% YoY.

Also on Friday, UK GDP growth rate for Q2 will be published, at an expected rate of 1.4% YoY.

+0.41*

-1.0     A score of -1.0 indicates an extremely poor economic outlook, which is accompanied by a high probability of negative returns in risky asset classes like equities. The Risk Barometer tilts our portfolios away from equities during such periods.

0.0       A score of 0 indicates a neutral economic outlook with almost equal probability of positive and negative returns in risky asset classes like equities. The Risk Barometer maintains a balance between equities and other asset classes during such periods.

+1.0   A score of +1.0 indicates an extremely positive economic outlook, which is accompanied by a high probability of positive returns in risky asset classes like equities. The Risk Barometer tilts our portfolios towards equities during such periods.

*as at latest realignment 30/07/19

Notice:

The performance of each asset class is represented by certain Exchange Traded Funds available to UK investors and expressed in GBP terms selected by Copia Capital Management to represent that asset class, as reported at previous Thursday 4:30pm UK close. Reference to a particular asset class does not represent a recommendation to seek exposure to that asset class. This information is included for comparison purposes for the period stated, but is not an indicator of potential maximum loss for other periods or in the future.