German Consumer Sentiment Falls

The German GfK Consumer Climate is expected to come in at 10.0 in August of 2016, compared to 10.1 in July and market consensus of 9.9. Both economic and income expectations fell, mainly affected by the Brexit. In contrast, the willingness to buy increased slightly.The GfK Consumer Climate Indicator is based on a survey of 2000 individuals age 14 and above, and focuses on income expectations, buying propensity and savings.

“Consumers do not seem to believe that the German economy can continue to grow in the coming months at quite such a significant pace as in previous months. They put this down to the Brits’ decision to leave the EU” said GfK.

"German consumers...have evidently been affected by the Brits' decision to leave the European Union. This is signalled by the decline of both economic and income expectations, even as consumers' intentions to buy exceeded an already very high level," it added.

Market Snapshot



Equity Markets: Top performers: Japan, Italy, Germany. Worst performers: Australia, Norway. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan was up 0.2 percent, climbing to its highest since Aug.11 2015. The Nikkei rose 1.2 percent to 16,581.00 in midmorning trade. The Topix gained 0.8 percent to 1,317.14. and the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 added 0.8 percent to 11,843.06. Hong Kong stocks rose 0.4 percent. The S&P 500 edged up 0.03 percent to 2,169.18 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.24 percent to 5,110.05.

Currency Markets : Top performers: EUR/JPY, USD/JPY, GBP/GBP. Worst performers: NZD/CAD, NZD/USD, AUD/USD. The dollar last traded at 105.65 yen, up 1 percent on the day. The euro edged up 0.1 percent to $1.0995. The pound edged up 0.1 percent to $1.3114 after touching a two-week low of $1.3057 overnight. The Australian dollar was flat at 0.7500 after rising to as high as 0.7568 after the data.

Commodities Markets: Top performers: Soybean Oil, Soybean, Corn Worst performers: Silver, Copper, Natural Gas. Brent crude oil futures were trading at $44.81, down 6 cents from their previous close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $42.87, down 5 cents. Spot gold fell 0.2 percent to $1,316.90 an ounce. Palladium, which hit a nine-month high of $694.30 on Tuesday, was down 0.3 percent at $684.97 an ounce. Silver was down 0.5 percent at $19.52 and platinum was little changed at $1,092 an ounce.

Treasuries: Top performers: UK Glitz, Euro Schatz. Worst performers: US T-Bond,Euro Bund.The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was down 1 basis point at 1.565 percent, while the 30-year yield fell about half basis point to 2.283 percent. The two-year yield was little changed at 0.762 percent.