Any boost to prices is unlikely to last long

While the US-China trade war has continued to escalate, commodity prices have clawed back a little of their lost ground since the trough at the end of last week. This was aided in part by President Trump seeming to strike a more conciliatory tone on Monday, but another hefty decline in US crude stocks also helped to allay fears of weaker US oil demand. Looking ahead to next week, we expect a small upturn in the ISM activity data on Tuesday to give further evidence that growth in the US isn’t falling off a cliff and hence provide a temporary fillip to prices.