Hopes of policy stimulus boost industrial metals

The prices of riskier assets, including industrial metals as well as equities, have been boosted by hopes of additional fiscal and monetary support to mitigate any global fallout from the UK’s vote to leave the EU. As it happens, we think expectations of the release of “helicopter” money in Japan are premature and that the Fed is still likely to raise interest rates in the US later in the year. But China’s Q2 and June activity data have also provided further reassurance that policy stimulus over the past year has at least put a floor underneath growth there.