Bank of England hits pound, jobless claims and OPEC meeting

Central Banks of Japan and England announced the results of their meetings yesterday. Following the Fed, they decided to leave the parameters of monetary policies unchanged. But at the same time, the Bank of England dealt a rather painful blow to the British pound, noting that it will intensify the discussion of negative interest rates due to the increased uncertainty in the economy.

However, everything is unclear not only in England. Although the US economy is recovering, it has been doing it quite slowly lately. Yesterday's data on jobless claims is a vivid proof of this. On the one hand, the number of both primary and secondary applications has decreased. But, on the other hand, they are still several times higher than the pre-pandemic values. And if they continue to improve at such a pace, then it will take at least another six months to reach the pre-pandemic levels.

Republicans and Democrats have not stopped trying to negotiate a new stimulus package for the United States. Perhaps there has been some breakthrough. At the very least, Trump's words that he is open to additional costs and the final package of $ 1.5 trillion are definitely a step towards a compromise with the Democrats.

OPEC + members met online yesterday. Despite the downward revision of forecasts for oil demand, OPEC+ did not begin to expand the volumes of the voluntary production cuts. They can be understood because a number of countries do not even comply with the current obligations. According to the IEA, the UAE alone exceeded its oil production quotas in August by an average of 520,000 bpd. OPEC+ once again shook a finger at the violators. In total, nothing that can be interpreted as a reason for oil growth at the end of yesterday did not happen, which means that current prices are an excellent opportunity for sales.