Market looks to Brexit and healthcare talks this week

US STOCKS recouped some of their losses as the return of the commodities bust was offset by a rebound in tech stocks.

This week, the stock market will be vulnerable to surprises from healthcare negotiations in Washington DC and Brexit talks in Brussels.

Oil futures entered a bear market last week, falling to around US$43 a barrel, more than 20 per cent below their peaks of the year near US$55. Oil bears are betting that increased production on US shale fields will compensate for the crude drained from the market by the production-cap deal among oil exporting nations.

The weak oil price is contributing to a peculiarity of the current bull market and economic expansion: the absence of inflation. Unease about the lack of inflation is one reason that investors have rotated out of "Trump trades", including energy, material and financial stocks, and into tech and biotech stocks in the last …