All things US: midterms, Fed and the dollar

And if you look to markets right now, over the last two weeks since our last episode, it might appear that not a lot has changed in terms of some of the headline values.

But actually, under the surface, quite a lot has been going on, particularly on the geopolitical side.

So at time of recording, oil prices are currently at their highest level in nearly three weeks, Brent crude at 79%.

a barrel as there are growing signs that the interim deal reached between the US and Iran is coming under strain.

And indeed, of course, last week as well, we had a bit of an underwhelming US jobs report.

Payrolls are only up 57,000 and there were downward revisions the previous couple of months.

So again, in absolute terms, not terrible, but some of that momentum recently in markets has been lost a bit.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like you said, everything kind of looks flat.

If you'd been away for the last two and a half weeks, potentially watching all 100 games of the World Cup, you would probably have missed actually some interesting stories, as you mentioned, geopolitics and on the US, which we'll explore in detail, but also here in Europe.

Our colleagues have written extensively about this German reform package that covers income tax reform, pension reform, that should start to impact the economy in a couple of ways, both in confidence and maybe competitiveness.

here in Europe over the next year or so, and our European equity strategists are saying that that should help draw in inflows.

So although things on the surface look calm and relatively unchanged, there's some fascinating dynamics that are starting to play out under the surface and perhaps Most interestingly, as you mentioned, with regards to the US, the softer NFP, the set of minutes, CPI next week.