OUTLOOK: Price Signal Summary - Bear Threat In Oil Futures Remains Present

• Greenback creeps the best levels of the session headed into the NY crossover, with EUR/USD dragged further off the early overnight high. Move has prompted USD/CNH and USD/JPY to test the Friday highs - clearance of which marks a further reversal of the NFP-triggered losses - albeit only a small part of the USD step lower.
• FX futures markets signal low participation today: intraday volumes are lower across the board for this time of day: EUR futures see activity of 30% below average, GBP 20% below and JPY futures 35% below average, even when factoring in the pick-up in the spot price in recent trade.
• Equity futures still point to a higher open on Wall Street today, however Europe's early gains have faltered - with the Stoxx600 now lower, with the move coinciding with a recovery in Europe-facing oil prices.
• Focus today rests on speculation and expectations for the Trump-Putin meeting scheduled for later this week. Ahead of the meeting in Alaska, reports this weekend suggested that Moscow and Washington are working toward a deal to progress with a ceasefire in exchange for a freezing of territorial gains - an agreement that will likely receive heavy criticism among European leaders, and the Ukrainian President himself.
• There remain questions over whether Zelenskyy himself could attend the meeting in some capacity - but regardless of the outcomes this week, the meeting represents a significant thawing in tensions between Russia and the West.

• The below updates the list of analyst unrounded CPI estimates ahead of tomorrow’s July report -- the full MNI US CPI Preview will be released later today.
• The median of thirteen analysts below looks for headline CPI at 0.24% M/M, suggesting risk is tilted to the upside to the Bloomberg consensus of 0.2.
• Core CPI meanwhile is seen at 0.31% M/M (cons 0.3) with a current range of 0.21-0.35% M/M after the 0.23% M/M seen in June. It would be the strongest M/M since January.
• Particularly early core PCE tracking is currently between 0.29-0.33% from these analysts, an acceleration from 0.26% M/M in June. It would be the strongest M/M since February.

OI data points to a slight bias towards net short setting across much of the SOFR futures strip on Friday, with pockets of net long cover also seen.

• Note the only exception to those positioning swing directions came via apparent modest net short cover in the very front (SFRM5), with the strip twist steepening on the day.