Treasury set to release its twice-annual.........>

US: Treasury set to release its twice-annual currency report (today, according

to Politico though not official; likely 1700 or 1800ET), which puts countries on

a watchlist based on hitting numerical criteria (2/3 of the following:

significant trade surplus with US, large current acct surplus, FX intervention).

- Barclays say it is likely the countries that were on the Monitoring list in

May - China, Japan, Germany, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Ireland, and

Italy - will remain on the list, with Switzerland and Thailand potentially added

to it based on the criteria.

- Also they expect Singapore and Ireland to be candidates for removal from the

list by the next report, as they fall short of 2/3 criteria.

- ING say Vietnam is at risk of being labelled an FX manipulator and thus may be

at risk of US tariffs. It would join China which was designated a manipulator in

August (outside usual currency report schedule).