Top 3 Things for the Week 25 JULY 2016

FOMC Meeting

The meeting will take place on Tuesday-Wednesday, 26-27 of July.

The question for a rate hike remains whether the Fed will have a single hike until the end of the year or a possible two rate hike before the end of 2016.

BOJ Interest Rate Decision

The BOJ meeting on Friday might be a clarification for Shinzo Abe monetary policy plans.  Abe won elections on July 10th and as promised before, he will continue his Abenomics stimulus program.

No change in interest rate is expected as current rate in Japan is in negative territory.

There are speculations that the fiscal BOJ stimulus program will be increased  from 130$ billion to 390$ billion.

Europe Stress Testing

The stress test is designed to provide supervisors, banks and other market participants with a common analytical framework to consistently compare and assess the resilience of EU banks to economic shocks. 

Europe stress banking test results will be published on Friday. The data could spread light on Italy and European commission debt solution.

The Italian debt is currently 360 billion Euros and the data release on Friday might bring to settlement of both sides.

On Thursday, ECB president Mario Draghi  announced that ECB keeps stimulus program unchanged. However, Draghi hinted the possibility of arrangement to Italian banks in order to improve their ability to lend funds.

COPPER

 Refined Copper production from scrap increased 5.5% year on year to 1.307 million tons in the opening four months of 2016, as per latest figures from the International Copper Study Group (ICSG).

ALUMINIUM

China Aluminum International Trading Co. (Chalco Trading) cut aluminum prices in major markets again today after a brief hike, it said on its WeChat.

ZINC

The latest statistics published by the International Lead and Zinc Study Group (ILZSG) indicates that global refined zinc market was in deficit of 64,000 tons during the initial five-month period of the current year.

 SUPPLY SIDE:    The zinc mine output declined considerably in major producing countries including Australia, India, Ireland, Peru and the United States. Overall, the zinc mine output declined significantly by 7.7% during the initial five-month period in 2016 

DEMAND SIDE:  The global demand for refined zinc metal has increased marginally by 0.6% to 5.597 million tons during January to May this year.

LEAD

The ILZSG preliminary data indicates that global refined lead market was in surplus of 53,000 tons during the initial five-month period in 2016.

SUPPLY SIDE:    The lead mine production reported decline in countries such as Australia and the United States. The overall global lead mine production dropped by nearly 5% during Jan-May ’16

 DEMAND SIDE:  The global demand for refined lead metal witnessed marginal dip of 3.3% to 4.222 million tons during January to May this year. The European apparent usage increased sharply by 9.8%. Chinese apparent usage dropped by 12.4%. The usage in the United States and the Republic of Korea fell by 1.2% and 7.5% respectively.

 CAPITALSTARS