Oil falls, Italy earthquake and UK mortgage approvals disappoint

• EUR German Final GDP q/q: 0.4%
• GBP BBA Mortgage Approvals: 37.7K
• USD Existing Home Sales: 5.39M
• USD Crude Oil Inventories: 2.5M

The economic docket was light yesterday, however news was thick and fast. Oil continued to fall after a bump on Tuesday afternoon following reports that Iran may support an OPEC output freeze. The decline in oil continued throughout the day yesterday. We also had some tragic news from Italy, where a 6.2 magnitude quake hit central Italy, causing a vast amount of damage and loss of life.

From the UK, the BBA High Street Banking statistics were released. The reading is a leading indicator of housing market demand, giving economists’ a gauge of how many buyers are actually entering the market. BBA Mortgage Approvals posted a worse than expected 37.7k, its lowest reading in 18 months. These are the first set of borrowing figures gathered since the EU referendum results.

• EUR German Ifo Business Climate
• USD Core Durable Goods Orders m/m
• USD Unemployment Claims
• USD Durable Goods Orders m/m
• ALL Jackson Hole Symposium
• JPY Tokyo Core CPI y/y

Data picks up as markets open to the German Ifo business climate hitting the wires at 9am.  With robust and strong data being seen from Germany of late this is also expected to increase to 108.5, up slightly from previous 108.3. Across the pond, in the afternoon markets will see possibly the biggest report of the week posted, as the durable goods orders for July is expected to rebound to 3.5% from June’s disappointing -3.9%.  The services PMI is the last economic data released from the States before the Jackson Hole Symposium kicks off for three days.