
Brent crude rose nearly 2% after hitting a four-year high on Wednesday as the market focused on upcoming U.S. sanctions on Iran while shrugging off the year’s largest weekly build in U.S. crude stockpiles and reports of higher Saudi Arabian and Russian production.

Brazilian markets surged on Tuesday as stronger polling for far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro and a Congressional farm caucus endorsement boosted expectations that he may block the leftist Workers Party from returning to power.

Behind Brazil's polarized presidential election, and unpredictable result, the business class in Latin America's largest economy looking for clear signals of what can be expected as of 2019 either from the former army captain Jair Bolsonaro or from economist Fernando Haddad, handpicked by Lula da Silva as his successor. Hopefully not a choice between “awful” and “extremely awful”

After 14 months of talks between the United States and its closest allies, President Donald Trump celebrated the United States Mexico Canada Agreement, or USMCA, a new trade agreement that is poised to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

Dominic Raab, the British minister responsible for Brexit has told the EU to “get real” and reach a deal with the UK, and said EU chiefs had disrespected Theresa May with “jibes” at a recent summit. Raab underlined that the UK would leave without a deal rather than be “bullied” into signing a “one-sided” arrangement.

Conservatives cannot afford to look like the party of “no change”, British Chancellor Philip Hammond has warned colleagues. Mr Hammond said the Tories could not “outspend” Jeremy Corbyn's Labour with “short-term gimmicks”. Instead he said they urgently needed to make the case for capitalism and “take our people with us”.

The he Argentine peso climbed more than 4% on Monday trading on the back of a debt sale by the central bank aimed at mopping up excess liquidity and signs that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is solidly behind the administration of president Mauricio Macri.

Argentina has “nearly closed” a new currency swap deal with China that will add the equivalent of US$ 9 billion to the South American country’s reserves, the central bank said on Sunday. Argentina and China first agreed to a swap program in 2009 to boost the South American country’s dwindling reserves under former President Cristina Fernandez. Last year, the center-right government of President Mauricio Macri and China agreed to extend the program for three more years.

The US dollar slipped against the Canadian dollar on Monday as the United States and Canada reached a framework deal to update the North American Free Trade Agreement. The deal reached involves offering more dairy access to U.S. farmers as well as Canada agreeing to a side-letter arrangement effectively capping automobile exports to the United States.

Whoever wins Brazil’s presidential election on October 7, and the runoff on October 28, will have to convince markets, implement austerity measures while trying to drag millions people out of poverty.