Markets enter Tuesday with the macro picture shifting quickly. Keir Starmer confirmed his resignation as UK Prime Minister Monday morning, with Andy Burnham - viewed as a fiscal dove - the frontrunner to succeed him, and sterling under quiet but persistent pressure at 1.3248. Meanwhile, the Iran story that drove Monday's risk-off open has reversed: a US-Iran 60-day peace roadmap and a US Treasury licence permitting Iranian oil sales have sent WTI crude sliding back toward $74, erasing the weekend's war-premium bounce. Gold is soft near $4,150, weighed by hawkish Fed repricing, with both Deutsche Bank and BofA now calling for a September rate hike. South Korea's Kospi fell more than 6% overnight in a session that also saw Nasdaq 100 futures slip close to 1% in early trade.
The two instruments most likely to trend today are GBP/JPY and WTI crude - the former caught between sterling political risk and yen intervention risk simultaneously, the latter under structural bearish pressure as the Middle East supply premium continues unwinding. Gold's $4,140 support is the level that defines whether the metal stabilises or breaks lower toward $4,060. Flash PMI data releases today for the US manufacturing and services sectors are the intraday catalyst that could shift dollar positioning sharply before Thursday's PCE report arrives.
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