Look Ahead 17/10/23: Goldman Sachs; Bank of America; Bellway; United Airlines; RBA minutes

(Video Transcript)

Middle East conflict has investors on tenterhooks

Hello, I'm Angeline Ong, and welcome to your Look Ahead to Tuesday, 17 October 2023. Now, it's a really busy period, many people still watching the Middle East tensions alongside safe havens like treasury yields that are seemingly holding quite high now.

Also, oil is reacting and currently everyone's watching to see whether this Middle East crisis spills into oil producing countries.

We're looking at the Australian dollar versus the US dollar because we are waiting on the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) meeting minutes. Of course, the RBA stood pat on interest rates recently and said that they would wait until inflation readings showed whether or not inflation pressures continued to be a problem.

However, this is more of a dollar story because the dollar has edged lower but remained near a one week high with fragile sentiment against this backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East supporting a demand for the safe-haven currency.

Fed keeps everyone guessing over rates

We're also looking out for comments potentially out later in the day from Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell as well, which could give us more clues as to where US interest rates are heading and whether they'll stay higher for longer.

In the United Kingdom, we've got unemployment-rate figures expected. Just looking at the pound rather versus the US dollar. Similar picture there. As I mentioned earlier, the dollar is being underpinned because it is a safe haven currency or considered safer.

Just checking on the euro versus sterling now. This cross has been interesting recently because it looks like the European Central Bank (ECB) is not yet finished with hiking rates. However, that might have changed in the last two weekends since what we've seen out of the Middle East, the UK, certainly seeing that inflation pressures especially from that.

US CPI, PPI data due

Consumer price index (CPI) numbers out of the US And also the producer price index (PPI) figures. The UK keeping a steady eye on inflation here too, given that higher oil prices could be back on the menu.

Out of Germany, we've got the ZEW Economic Sentiment. And from the US, let's look up for retail sales, industrial production, and also business inventories.

Plus, we also have the API crude oil inventory report too. Watching out for Rio Tinto's operational review as well. This is the miner Bellway, also out with full-year earnings. Many of the UK house builders have been under the weather recently facing headwinds, with Travis Perkins recently coming out and saying that it saw weak demand for its home improvement supplies.

Big US banks report earnings

Money Supermarket also out with a third-quarter trading statement. The real action is coming out of the US, where we have some of the other big banks reporting. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson also out with third-quarter numbers and United Airlines.

But in terms of Bank of America, the company based in Charlotte, North Carolina is expected to report a 2.2% rise in sales to around $25 billion. This is slightly higher than the $24.6bn reported a year ago.

Many of these banks will be under the microscope because the numbers out from some of the big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo out late in the previous week showed initially.

Pretty healthy numbers and that's it for now. For more market-moving news, do join me on Beat the Street at 1.30pm London time when I'll give you the heads-up to the US trading day.

My colleague Jeremy Naylor be doing the same on Early Morning Call for the European trading day at 7.30am. Until then you can check us out on @AngelineOng and IG com. This is IGTV.