The High Court within the UK
Explained in a ruling today
That Boris cannot
Complete what he’s wrought
A win for those who want to stay

As I wrote last Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruling in the UK cannot be a surprise to anyone. The issue was that twelve justices who were appointed to their seats from lives of privilege and wealth, and who almost certainly each voted to Remain two years ago, were going to decide whether Boris Johnson, a rebel in every conceivable way, would be allowed to lead the UK out of the EU against their personal views. These are folks who have greatly benefitted from the UK being within the EU, and they were not about to derail that gravy train. Thus, this morning’s ruling should have been the default case in everyone’s mind.

Interestingly, the ruling went far beyond simply the legality of the prorogation, but included a call for Parliament to reconvene immediately. Naturally, John Bercow, the speaker of the House of Commons, and an alleged non-partisan player, called on both sides of the aisle to get back to work post haste. Given that prorogation was nothing new in Parliament, having occurred on a fairly regular basis since 1628 when King Charles I first did so, and since there is no written constitution in the UK by which to compare laws to a basic canon, it will be interesting in the future when another PM seeks prorogation at a time less fraught than the current Brexit induced mania, whether or not they have the ability to do so.

Nonetheless, we can expect Parliament to reconvene shortly and try to do more things to insure that Boris cannot unilaterally ignore the current law requiring the PM to ask for an extension if there is no deal agreed at the deadline. In other words, there is still plenty of action left in this process, with just 37 days left until the current deadline.

And what of Sterling you ask? When the announcement hit the tape at 5:30 this morning, it jumped a quick 0.4% to just below 1.2500. That move had all the hallmarks of short covering by day traders, and we have since removed half of that gain. Interestingly, Boris is currently at the UN session in NY meeting with his EU counterparts and trying to get a deal in place. In the end, I still believe that the EU is ready to relent on some issues to pave the way for a deal of some sort. As European economic data continues to melt down (German IFO Expectations fell to 90.8, well below forecasts and the lowest in more than a decade), there is a growing sense of urgency that the EU leadership cannot afford to allow a hard Brexit. Combining that view with the fact that everybody over there is simply tired of the process and wants it to end means that a deal remains far more likely than not. As such, I remain pretty confident that we will see a deal before the deadline, or at least agreement on the key Irish backstop issue, and that the pound will rebound sharply.

Away from that story, however, things are far less exciting and impactful. On the trade front, news that China has allowed exemptions from soybean tariffs for a number of Chinese importers has been met with jubilation in the farm belt, and has imparted a positive spin to the equity market. Last week’s trepidations over the canceling of the Chinese delegation’s trip to Montana and Nebraska is ancient history. The narrative is back to progress is being made and a deal will happen sooner or later. Equity markets have stabilized over the past two days, although in order to see real gains based on the trade situation we will need to see more definitive progress.

Bond prices continue to focus on the global industrial malaise that is essentially made evident every day by a new data release. Yesterday it was PMI, today IFO and later this week, on Thursday, we will see Eurozone confidence indicators for Industry, Services and Consumers. All three of these have been trending lower since the winter of 2017 and there is no reason to expect that trend to have changed. As such, it is no surprise that we continue to see government bond yields slide with Treasuries down a further 3bps this morning as are JGB’s. Bunds, however, have seen less buying interest and have seen yields fall just 1bp. The story with Bunds is more about the increasing calls for fiscal stimulus in the Eurozone. Signor Draghi has tried his best but the Teutons remain stoic in the face of all his pressure. But Draghi is an economist. Incoming ECB President Christine Lagarde is a politician and may well be the best choice for the role after all. If she has the political nous to change Merkel’s views, that will be enough to open the taps, arguably support growth in the EU and reduce the need for further monetary ease. However, that is a BIG if.

One other story out of China describes comments from PBOC Governor Yi Gang that essentially said there was no reason for them to ease policy aggressively at this time, although they have plenty of tools available if they need to do so in the future. It is clear they are still quite concerned over inflating a housing bubble and will do all they can to prevent any further excess leverage in the real estate sector. It should not be surprising that the renminbi benefitted from these comments as it is 0.25% stronger than yesterday. The combination of a slightly more hawkish PBOC and the positive trade news was all it took.

Turning to this morning’s session, things are pretty quiet at this time. There are only two minor pieces of data, Case Shiller House Prices (exp 2.90%) and Consumer Confidence (133.0). On the speaker front, nobody is scheduled today although yesterday we heard from a number of doves, Bullard, Daly and Williams, all of whom agreed with the recent rate cut. With the day’s big news out of the way, I anticipate a relatively uneventful session. Overall the dollar is slightly softer on the day, and it seems reasonable to believe that trend will stay in place so look for a modest decline as the day progresses.

Good luck
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