FTSE makes early gains after Conservative manifesto is aired

The FTSE open up 0.68% this morning, with NMC Health and Evraz among the risers. Burberry was also up again going into the Xmas shopping period and with some positive sentiment accruing from the Hong Kong vote at the weekend.

The Conservative party published its manifesto over the weekend, which promised no hikes in income tax, VAT, or national insurance, which seems to have gone down with the market and injected a note of bullishness into the FTSE this morning, despite last week’s poorer economic numbers for the UK.

Asian markets up on back of HK vote

Asian markets were trading up this morning following the election in Hong Kong over the weekend. While results are still coming it, the poll indicates broad grass roots support for pro-democracy protestors in the territory. The Hang Seng index was up 1.8% Monday.

US-China trade resolution still some way off

Elsewhere Reuters is reporting that trade talks between the US and China are still have a long way to go. At this stage negotiators are struggling to resolve what is called the ‘phase one’ part of the deal, with phase two looking like a distant prospect. Indications are that a deal may end up sliding into the early part of 2020. Asian traders are still hoping for a deal and the main indexes in Japan, Korea and Australia were all up.

USD unchanged going into Tuesday consumer confidence data

The USD ended up relatively unchanged in early trading in Asia, following a trend which saw it rangebound last week. Traders will be focusing on Tuesday’s confidence data as we head into a truncated Thanksgiving week. Last week’s data has been broadly positive for the US economy however.