NATGAS: Russian Gas Ban Could Accelerate Third Greece LNG Terminal Talks

Leader of the main opposition centre-right Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), Pierre Poilievre, has been returned to the House of Commons following a comfortable by-election win on 18 August. With 99.65% of the vote counted, Poilievre won the rural Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot with 80.4% of the vote. Independent candidate Bonnie Critchley came second with 9.9%. The result was never in doubt, with the sparsely populated area of Alberta to the east of Calgary one of the most conservative areas of the country. 

• Poilievre's win will enable him to debate PM Mark Carney in the House of Commons, a privilege he has never held. Prior to the 28 April federal election, Carney did not hold a seat in the Commons and so could not take part in the PM's Question Period. In a disastrous result for the Conservatives on election night, Poilievre lost his own riding in Ottawa. Since then, he has not been able to directly question Carney.
• The CPC leader's return to parliament does little to alter the gov'ts policy direction or Carney's position as PM. Indeed, Poilievre will face another challenge in the new year. In Jan 2026, CPC members vote on his leadership following a review of the election disaster, where the party went from leading the Liberals by 20% just months before the vote to seeing Carney win an overall majority after CPC support cratered in the face of trade and security threats from the Trump administration in the US

There was a decent pullback in the Atlanta Fed's Q3 GDPNow estimate today to 2.26% from 2.55% in the Aug 15 update. This comes entirely on the back of a shift in the expectation for residential investment growth in the quarter: now seen at -5.9% Q/Q SAAR, vs 1.1% in the prior estimate (and -4.6% in Q1).

• That equates to a 0.24pp subtraction from GDP from residential investment in the quarter, vs +0.04pp in the prior est.
• This reflects a big miss in today's building permits data (-2.8% in July vs -0.5% expected), and is reflective of weakness in a housing sector that increasingly looks like it will continue to be a drag on growth through year-end.

• GBPUSD has consolidated around the 1.35 mark on Tuesday amid gilts paring some of yesterday's weakness. A technical bull cycle remains intact, keeping sights on 1.3636, the 76.4% retracement of the bear leg between Jul 1 and Aug 1 ahead of tomorrow's UK CPI release.
• MPC focus is on headline CPI, which is expected to rise from June; from the previews that we have read the median expectation is for a 3.7% Y/Y. Energy prices could also gather some interest as we think they might come in higher than the median analyst expectation - for our full preview see here.
• Market expectations have swayed away from a November BoE cut recently following a flurry of better-than-expected data since the last meeting. However, December should remain well in play for now, with Governor Bailey, arguably the median voter, speaking Saturday on a panel in Jackson Hole.
• Danske meanwhile "increasingly see domestic factors and the relative growth outlook between the UK and the euro area as becoming GBP negatives", resulting in an EURGBP call "towards 0.89" on a 6 to 12-month horizon.
• ING mentioned yesterday they see "some sticky UK inflation for July looks unlikely to alter the market's view of the BoE", which "should keep GBP/USD bid this week, where a break of 1.3585/3600 could see 1.3680/3700 by the end of the week".
• Société Générale flagged (also yesterday) that sterling is the G10 currency which Asia market participants appear to be the least confident in.