Blips

Daily update

There has been a small blip in the oil price following the US announcement that two Russian energy companies would be blacklisted. US President Trump intends to raise the issue of China’s Russian oil purchases with China’s President Xi next week (assuming that meeting goes ahead). In the context of the recent oil price decline, the overnight price move is economically negligible—politics is the only reason it gets any attention.
The US government shutdown is now the second longest in history. Trump signaled that, despite this, part of the Department of Agriculture will be opened to distribute payments to American farmers. The department lowered minimum wages for seasonal migrant workers to encourage farms to employ them, following concerns that labor shortages might create unstable food production.
There are some sentiment polls due. Normally these could be dismissed but the French business sentiment data comes against a backdrop of political instability. However, survey respondents may feel pressured to answer in accordance with sensational media spin rather than more dull economic reality.
The Bank of Korea left rates unchanged, surprising almost no one. The ECB and the Federal Reserve are in their pre-meeting quiet periods—which seems unfair in the midst of the US data drought.