FINANCIALS: Nippon Life - New Issue - € 500m WNG 30NC10 Tier 2 - FV

A bearish threat in WTI futures remains present and recent gains are - for now - considered corrective. A resumption of the bear cycle would open $65.74, the Oct 1 low, and $63.90, the Sep 10 low and key support. For bulls, a stronger reversal to the upside would instead refocus attention on the key short-term resistance at $77.04, the Oct 8 high. Initial firm resistance to watch is unchanged at $72.41, the Nov 7 high. Gold has pulled back from its recent highs. Trend signals remain bullish and a move lower is considered corrective. A key short-term resistance at $2721.4, the Nov 25 high, has recently been pierced and this represents a positive development. A continuation higher would expose key resistance at $2790.1, the Oct 31 high. Clearance of this level would confirm a resumption of the primary uptrend. First key support is $2605.3, the Nov 26 low.

• WTI Crude down $0.43 or -0.61% at $70.24
• Natural Gas up $0.02 or +0.68% at $3.236
• Gold spot down $11.83 or -0.45% at $2640.6
• Copper down $3.9 or -0.93% at $415.25
• Silver down $0.27 or -0.88% at $30.276
• Platinum down $11.71 or -1.25% at $927.78

A bull cycle in the Eurostoxx 50 futures contract remains intact and the latest pullback is - for now - considered corrective. The contract has recently breached the 50-day EMA. The clear break of this average strengthens a bullish theme and note that 4961.00, the Nov 6 high, has also been cleared. Sights are on 5015.00 next, the Oct 29 high. Key support is 4699.00, the Nov 19 low. Initial support to watch lies at 4907.48, the 20-day EMA. The S&P E-Minis contract is unchanged. The outlook remains bullish and the latest shallow pullback is considered corrective. Recent gains confirmed a resumption of the uptrend. Note that moving average studies are in a bull-mode set-up, highlighting a dominant uptrend and positive market sentiment. A resumption of the trend would open 6194.19, a Fibonacci projection. Initial support to watch lies at 6103.12, the 20-day EMA.

• Japan's NIKKEI closed lower by 92.81 pts or -0.24% at 39364.68 and the TOPIX ended 10.13 pts lower or -0.37% at 2728.2.
• Elsewhere, in China the SHANGHAI closed lower by 24.846 pts or -0.73% at 3361.485 and the HANG SENG ended 95.01 pts lower or -0.48% at 19700.48.
• Across Europe, Germany's DAX trades lower by 6.64 pts or -0.03% at 20307.24, FTSE 100 lower by 49.55 pts or -0.6% at 8212.58, CAC 40 up 6.08 pts or +0.08% at 7364.28 and Euro Stoxx 50 up 3.94 pts or +0.08% at 4951.73.
• Dow Jones mini down 153 pts or -0.35% at 43615, S&P 500 mini down 19 pts or -0.31% at 6061.75, NASDAQ mini down 41.75 pts or -0.19% at 22069.

As flagged in our initial reaction, the composition of the German 2025 funding plan has helped the German 10s30s curve steepen intraday. The curve is now 0.9bps steeper today (up 0.7bps since the announcement) at ~23.5bps, but still sits shy of this month’s steepest levels of over 26bps.

• Bobl’s cheapened on the 2s5s10s fly into the funding plan’s release, but has held close to intraday lows of ~17.5bps since 0900GMT.
• A reminder that the most notable part of the plan was that there are increases in Bobl and 30-year Bund issuance, while decreases in issuance are centred around Schatz and 10-year Bund.