Monday 26th August 2019

China’s official response to President Trump’s latest round of import tariffs sent markets into a spin on Friday. That was before the US President responded, pushes their tariffs up higher still. Phil Dobbie asks NAB’s Ray Attrill what sort of reaction we will see this morning. At Jackson Hole Fed Chair Jerome Powell diplomatically suggested the trade situation made the work of central banks difficult, saying there are no recent precedents to guide any policy response to the current situation. Does this mean we can expect less, or more, in the way of rate cuts this year? Philip Lowe gave a similar response at Jackson Hole, whilst Boris Johnson, at a fiery G7 summit, didn’t make much headway on Brexit, admitting to the BBC that a deal was ‘touch and go’.