Little changed as Monday went on, the markets stuck in the same muted mood struck at the open.
The FTSE actually ended up being Europe’s best performing major index, unchanged at 6975 despite the broadly red tinge of its China-worried commodity sector. It appears that both it and sterling are caught in a pre-Brexit Plan B limbo, the pound similarly unmoving against the dollar and the euro (it had previously been down 0.2% and 0.1% respectively).
How much May’s latest Brexit gambit will shift the needle is unclear. Going by the Sunday papers, she isn’t going to offer up anything new, instead promising to return to Brussels to renegotiate the Irish backstop to get the DUP and Tory rebels back on board ahead of next Tuesday’s vote. What could cause sterling to stop sitting on its hands, however, is whether the reported amendments aimed at preventing the possibility of a ‘no-deal’ exit materialise.
Elsewhere the DAX pulled back under 11200 as it fell 0.6%, with the CAC following suit with its own 0.3% decline. As for the US, Martin Luther King Day means any China data-reaction will have to wait until tomorrow.
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