OIL: Oil Summary at European Close: Crude Rises

The July 31 low of 86.25 was untested during this morning’s selloff in Gilts, with futures having bounced strongly in tandem with core FI peers through the afternoon. US-Iran sentiment remains the primary driver of intraday moves, particularly with the domestic calendar relatively light (Q2 GDP on Thursday isn’t likely to shift the BOE outlook meaningfully). Next week sees both UK labour market and inflation data released. 

• Gilts are now +23 ticks at 87.21, up from a session low of 86.33. Resistance is not seen until the August 5 high of 88.06.
• OI in the Sep26 contract increased marginally yesterday, limiting scope for positioning inferences from the 55-tick selloff.

• This morning the ONS announced its latest plans for the transition from LFS to TLFS. The main takeaways are that the ONS confirmed that "now is not the right time to transition". The earliest plans suggest a transition for the headline measures from LFS to TLFS in November 2027 (with a final decision not to be made until July 2027). Note that the TLFS data will be published before the transition in order for users to review the data - the decision on the timing of this will be made in January 2027.
• Alongside the beginnings of the transition, survey participants have been financially compensated for completing the survey since April (with an increased payment of £20) with the survey taking a median of 17 minutes down from the LFS time of 40-45 minutes.
• At present both LFS and TLFS are run simultaneously (which the ONS admits is not a sustainable long-term solution). This does show up some differences however, for example "fewer respondents were classified as long-term sick on the TLFS, with some reporting instead that they were retired, looking after family or home, or economically inactive for other reasons... These differences could reflect how some questions are asked on the TLFS... For example, the ordering of response options now better reflects the prevalence of different reasons."
• The plan remains to sunset the LFS data after the full transition to TLFS.
• The full transition report is available here and recall that our Policy team interviewed James Benford, the ONS' Director General Surveys and Economic Statistics in July.

• Date $MM Issuer (Priced *, Launch #)
• 08/11 $Benchmark Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) 3Y +85a, 3Y SOFR, 5Y +95a, 7Y +105a, 10Y +115a
• 08/11 $Benchmark Martin Marietta 3Y +90a, +5Y +110a, +7Y +120a, 10Y +125a, 30Y +145a
• 08/11 $Benchmark Universal Health 5Y +140a, 10Y +170a
• 08/11 $Benchmark Marriott Intl 2029 tap +70a, 10Y +125a
• 08/11 $Benchmark Voya Global Funding 5Y +110a
• 08/11 $Benchmark Ferguson 3Y +85a, 10Y +120a
• 08/11 $Benchmark Blue Owl Finance 10Y +250a
• 08/11 $Benchmark Illinois Tool 3Y +65a
• 08/11 $500M #State Bank of India 5Y +88