Weekly Market Recap – May 25th, 2018

In the Markets

President Trump called off the June 12th summit with North Korea on Thursday. Following this announcement, South Korean president Moon Jae-in met with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday, and it appears that for the time being, the meetings between U.S. and North Korea are back on the table as Washington continues preparations for the meeting in Singapore.

Meanwhile, European markets could take a hit as Italy, one of the EU’s largest economies, faces internal political turmoil. Populist parties The Five Star Movement and The League won March parliamentary elections on the way to forming a coalition, only to be vetoed by President Mattarella in favor of an interim government. As the situation unfolds, the ramifications could not only impact Italian markets and the euro, but may have impacts across the Atlantic.

Global oil supplies may receive a boon as OPEC and Russia held meetings to discuss increasing production. This comes as Venezuela’s production crisis continues. Venezuela’s state run oil company PDVSA owns Houston-based Citgo, and in 2016 placed a large share of Citgo up as collateral for a loan from Russia’s petroleum giant Rosneft, putting the health of the Latin American oil market at the center of the global economic landscape.

Crude oil fell sharply on Friday in response to OPEC and Russia’s discussions on production hikes. WTI July futures fell below the $70/bbl mark, dropping 5% to $67.88. Brent futures dropped 3.56% to $76.48, and the crack spread higher as oil products continued to outperform crude.

The dollar continued its bullish streak as the index climbed to a high of 94.19 last week. Precious metals also placed gains last week, with gold up 0.96%, silver up 0.55%, and platinum up 1.67%.

Agricultural commodities strengthened as Soybeans, Corn, CBOT Wheat, sugar, and coffee all posted gains on the week. The major indices all saw minor gains over the week, with the S&P up 0.31%, the NASDAQ up 1.08%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.15%.

World Cup Trading Championships

After 63 straight trading days at the top of the WCTC leaderboard, Paul Skarp was finally overtaken by Jan Smolen, who had been sitting in second place since mid-April. Smolen finished the week up 46%, closing Friday in first place at 148.17%. Skarp held onto second, finishing with a net return of 91.93%.

Wayne Wan held onto third for the 13th day in a row, finishing the week at 74.89%. Carlos Eisenberg managed a climb into the top 5 on Monday, but Jonathan Brum da Silva regained 4th place with a net return of 70.01%, putting pressure on Wan as he closed within 5% of 3rdplace.

Takumaru Sakakibara held onto 5th place, finishing the week at 40.87%.

Trading futures and forex involves significant risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. World Cup Championship (WCC ) accounts do not necessarily represent all the trading accounts controlled by a given competitor. WCC competitors may control accounts that produce results substantially different than the results achieved in their WCC accounts. WCC entrants may trade more than one account in the competition.