Morning Briefing: FBI’s Comey, UK elections, ECB in focus

FBI’s Comey, UK elections, ECB in focus

Three key events happen Thursday and the markets are keeping close watch on their developments.

Sacked FBI director James Comey is expected to deliver a testimony to the US Senate which will say that President Trump asked him to drop a probe into senior advisor Michael Flynn’s links to Russia.

Meanwhile in Europe, the UK is voting in a tightly-contested general election with the winner taking charge of the Brexit negotiations. And the ECB will announce its latest interest rates and monetary policy decisions.

Oil prices have stabilized overnight while gold has slipped.

Asia’s equity indexes closed mostly higher amid cautious trade. China’s trade figures revealed stronger exports and imports and Shanghai and Hong Kong indexes were both higher. Japan was the laggard of the session following another North Korean missile test Thursday.

European markets are trending higher. German industrial production and Eurozone GDP data both exceeded expectations.
Wall Street and Toronto are expected to open higher. Canadian housing starts and new housing price data are due along with the BoC’s latest review of the financial system.
 

	Latest	1 month ago	1 year ago
North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones	21,173.69 (+0.18 per cent)	+0.77 per cent	+17.60 per cent
TSX Composite	15,372.14 (-0.60 per cent)	-1.79 per cent	+7.40 per cent
Europe (at 5.00am ET)
UK FTSE	7,479.26 (+0.01 per cent)	+2.44 per cent	+18.69 per cent
German DAX	12,709.67 (+0.29 per cent)	+0.12 per cent	+24.40 per cent
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300	3,560.98 (+0.77 per cent)	+6.02 per cent	+12.55 per cent
Japan Nikkei	19,909.26 (-0.38 per cent)	+0.07 per cent	+18.29 per cent
Other Data (at 5.00am ET)
Oil (Brent)	Oil (WTI)	Gold	Can. Dollar
48.45 (+0.81 per cent)	46.07 (+0.77 per cent)	1286.10 (-0.55 per cent)	U$0.7405
			Aus. Dollar
			U$0.7548

Bill Gross warns of elevated market risk
Investors in US bonds are taking risks by “buying high and crossing their fingers” according to Bill Gross, fund manager at Janus Henderson Group Plc.

Gross told delegates at the Bloomberg Invest New York Summit that the markets are at their highest risk levels since before the 2008 financial crisis.

He told Bloomberg that low interest rates are driving up asset prices but not adding much growth in the real economy. However, he said there is value in some closed-end funds.