ECONOMICS

Via Middle East Eye

Saudi Arabia’s economy has powered ahead despite Israel’s war in Gaza and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, suggesting that the kingdom’s efforts to distance itself from regional tensions are paying off, literally. "Geopolitical events in the Middle East have not had any major impact on the Saudi economy so far," the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its latest report published on the kingdom’s economy.

The report says that Saudi oil (more…)

After the disaster that was the Manufacturing surveys earlier in the week, the Services surveys are the 'soft landing'-narrative-believers last great hope ahead of tomorrow's all-important payrolls print to save the day.

• S&P Global's Services PMI jumped from its flash print of 55.2 to a final August print of 55.7 (up from the 55.0 in July) – that is the highest since March 2022.

• ISM Services rose from 51.4 to 51.5 (barely beating the 51.4 (more…)

Ahead of tomorrow's "most important data point in history" payrolls print, this morning we get the ADP employment report and jobless claims (and ISM Services) as an aperitif to tease the day traders and test the reaction functions of the algos.

Against expectations of adding 145k jobs (a slight improvement over July's 122k), ADP's Employment report printed a dismal +99k for August – the weakest print since January 2021 (and July's +122k was revised (more…)