Morning Bid: Nikkei looks to rejoin the all-time high club

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Wayne Cole.

It's been a quiet start to the week, what with Japan on holiday and President Trump busy playing golf. Notably Nikkei futures traded in Chicago are just a whisker from all-time highs, suggesting the cash index could well reach it this week.

The Nikkei still only has a PE of 19, compared with 22 for the S&P 500 and almost 33 for Nasdaq, which is essentially a premium for AI. It would seem to be negative news, then, that Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the U.S. government 15% of revenue from sales to China of AI chips in return for export licenses.

That would be an extraordinarily unusual deal, especially as the U.S. had initially blocked the sales for national security reasons. Is this a tax? A fee? Where will the money go? How would it be administered? So many unknowns.

For the dollar and bonds, the main economic event will be U.S. consumer prices on Tuesday, where the impact of tariffs could nudge the core up 0.3% to an annual pace of 3.0% and further away from the Federal Reserve's target of 2%.

Forecasts range from 2.9% to 3.2%, suggesting some upside risk, which would test market wagers for a September rate cut. Analysts assume it would have to be a real shocker to move the dial much given the recent downward lurch in payrolls is now dominating the policy outlook.

Also on Tuesday is the supposed deadline for a U.S. trade deal with China. While everyone assumes it will be extended, there's yet to be any word on it for either side.

Chaos appears to be more a feature than a bug. Take COMEX gold futures, which surged last week after U.S. customs indicated the most widely traded bullion bars - produced mainly by Switzerland - would be slapped with tariffs.

The White House assured the market on Friday that this was "misinformation" and would be clarified, but again no more has been heard. Copper markets went through similar tariff-induced convulsions the week before.

Last week, Japan's trade team had to hotfoot it to Washington to correct the double-taxation of its exports. Japan assumes that was fixed, but there's still nothing in writing.

Now, oil prices have slipped just in case the talks between Trump and Russian leader Putin due this Friday actually make progress on Ukraine. Progress seems unlikely, however, given the White House has been floating the idea of a land swap which Ukraine would never agree to.

There are also reports from Europe that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff misunderstood what Putin was proposing at a meeting last week, suggesting some risk the entire Alaska adventure might be called off ahead of time.

Key developments that could influence markets on Monday:

- No major data due

(Editing by Sam Holmes)