COMMODITIES: Medium-Term Trend Signals for Gold Remain Bullish

US Earnings for Today, Two of the Mag 7 report after Markets:

• Pre Market: Caterpillar.
• Post Market: Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm.

Tagesspiegel reports that co-leader of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), Lars Klingbeil, has put himself forward to serve as finance minister and vice chancellor in the incoming 'grand coalition' gov't with the centre-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU). NTV reports that the party's executive committee voted unanimously in favour of this position. The prospect of Kingbeil serving as finance minister and vice chancellor had previously been mooted during the course of coalition negotiations (see 'GERMANY: Coalition Deal Reached, Presentation @ 1500CET, SPD Takes Fin Min', 9 Apr 1126BST).

• Klingbeil (47), hailing from Lower Saxony, first sat in the Bundestag in 2005 before being re-elected in 2009 and serving ever since. He is viewed as a moderate within the party, hailing from the centrist, liberal Seeheim Circle, which bills itself as a 'practical and undogmatic' grouping, compared to other more overtly socialist factions.
• This comes after confirmation that the SPD's membership approved the coalition agreement with 84% approval on a turnout of 56%.
• As Tagesspiegel notes, this marks the third time that the SPD membership has been asked to approve a governing coalition (each time with the CDU/CSU). The percentage of members approving is higher than ever (76% yes in 2013, 66% yes in 2018), but the turnout is the lowest to date (higher than 78% in both cases). Some have put the low turnout down to the online-only nature of this year's vote dissuading some less tech-savvy SPD members from voting. 

SX5E (19th June) 4500/5600RR, sold the put at 23.5 in 3k.