In today’s briefing:
- Oil futures: Crude heads for steep weekly losses ahead of OPEC+
- Q4 Outlook for Our Investment Themes
- Beyond the Current Account Deficit: What Drives the US Dollar?
Oil futures: Crude heads for steep weekly losses ahead of OPEC+
- Crude oil futures steadied Friday after four consecutive losses left prices sharply lower on the week, coming ahead of Sunday’s keenly anticipated online OPEC+ meeting.
- Front-month Dec25 ICE Brent futures were trading at $64.42/b (2005 BST) versus Thursday’s settle of $64.11/b, while Nov25 NYMEX WTI was at $60.73/b against a previous close of $60.48/b.
- Benchmarks had traded higher earlier in the day before losing steam in late trading.
Q4 Outlook for Our Investment Themes
- How have our major investment themes performed so far in 2025?
- Review of the performance of the major markets and asset classes we focus on
- We revisit our outlook for each of those asset classes for Q4 25
Beyond the Current Account Deficit: What Drives the US Dollar?
- Investors are under-appreciating a sharp narrowing of the US current account deficit in 2Q25. This is a sustainable trend as net government borrowing normalises to around 5% of GDP
- The US is not losing its ability to attract long term capital flows. In 2Q25, net foreign direct investment reached $121b, the strongest since 3Q22
- The result is a sharp improvement in the basic balance. Investors should monitor this indicator to assess whether Trump’s policy mix of fiscal consolidation and re-shoring is succeeding or not
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