Friday's close was shaped by two competing forces: a surprise softening in US labour market data — the July jobs report showed Non-Farm Payrolls well below the 85K consensus, with prior reads also reflecting weakness — which lifted rate-cut expectations and drove US 2-year yields up 7bp to 4.25% and 10-year yields up 6bp to 4.69%, suggesting a bond market reassessing growth rather than just policy timing. Gold surged 2.33% to $4,340.7/oz and silver rose 3.08%, signalling safe-haven demand, while crude (Brent +1.29% to $83.55/bbl) stayed elevated on Strait of Hormuz uncertainty as US-Iran ceasefire talks remained unresolved into the weekend. The VIX fell 1.65% to 14.9, indicating equity markets absorbed the jobs miss as a net positive for risk via dovish Fed repricing rather than a recession signal, with the S&P 500 closing at a record 7,757.64.

For European investors, the cross-asset picture is nuanced. EUR/USD dipped 0.28% to 1.1525 despite a softer DXY (99.6, -0.37%), reflecting EUR-specific headwinds tied to energy costs and ECB policy uncertainty, while GBP/USD held firmer at 1.3455 (-0.11%), leaving EUR/GBP at 0.8565 (-0.17%) — a modest sterling outperformance. German Bund yields fell 7.6bp to 2.97%, diverging sharply from rising US yields, a spread-widening move that compresses European bank margins and pressured the Banks sector (-0.08%) and Insurance names (ALV.DE -1.63%, MUV2.DE -1.38%). TTF gas at 56.66 EUR/MWh (+2.00%) and German power at 128.0 EUR/MWh keep input-cost pressure on industrials and consumers, with Chemicals (+1.91%) the sole major sector to outperform meaningfully, likely reflecting short-covering or feedstock price dynamics rather than demand improvement.