| Welcome to your morning markets update, delivered every weekday before the European open. Good morning. U.K. election speculation is gathering pace, Washington and Beijing can't agree on a meeting schedule, one major bank has turned bullish on stocks and it's the end of an era for a British retailer. Here's what's moving markets. Election Looming New puppy owner Boris Johnson says he doesn't want a U.K. general election, but that doesn't mean we won't get one. Members of Parliament are planning to pass legislation Tuesday evening to force the prime minister to delay Brexit until Jan. 31 unless he can get a new agreement with the European Union by mid-October. Johnson will try to trigger a snap election on Oct. 14 if he loses the crunch vote in Parliament. Bookmaker William Hill offers odds of 1/6 – an implied probability of 86% – that Britons will be voting before the year's out. Trade Uncertainty Weighs Asian stocks were mixed in thin trading amid yet more tariff war gloom, as Chinese and U.S. officials struggled to agree on scheduling for a planned meeting this month, according to people familiar with the discussions. That's after Washington rejected Beijing's request to delay tariffs that took effect over the weekend. But while the date for a visit of Chinese officials to the U.S. capital hasn't been set, that's not necessarily a sign it won't happen. JPMorgan Says Buy While trade woes are surely set to damp stock market sentiment in the near term, technical indicators and monetary easing from central banks should outweigh the impact, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co., which thinks it's finally time to buy stocks."We now advise to add risk back again,'' the strategists wrote Monday. It appears not everyone agrees, however. Just look at the gold market: Inflows into bullion-backed exchange-traded funds topped 100 tons in August to hit the highest since February 2013 as investors sought havens. M&S Out It's the end of an era for U.K. retail institution Marks & Spencer Group Plc, which is set to be demoted from London's benchmark FTSE 100 Index, ending a 35-year stay, according to indicative results from provider FTSE Russell that are due to be confirmed Wednesday. The company now has a market capitalization of just 3.7 billion pounds ($4.5 billion), down from a peak of about 18 billion pounds in 1997. M&S is expected to join software-maker Micro Focus International Plc and home and motor insurer Direct Line Insurance Group Plc in the mid-cap FTSE 250 index. Coming Up... U.K. construction PMI data is due to be released, but will surely be overshadowed by events in Westminster. Here's a run-down of the key macroeconomic events around the globe we're watching this week. Corporate earnings are limited again, although we'll get updates from French telecom company Iliad SA and, in the U.K., Restaurant Group Plc and Welsh chip-maker IQE Plc. What We've Been Reading This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours. And finally, here's what Cormac Mullen is interested in this morning The Japanese interest rate swap market in Europe is a good place to show the lengths investors are going to in their global hunt for yield. Thirty-year swap rates on London's LCH Clearnet fell to a record low versus those on Tokyo's Japan Securities Clearing Corp. last week, according to data from Tradition Asia starting in 2016. Trading on the London platform is dominated by non-Japanese investors, for whom Japan trades are often seen as attractive thanks to the carry that can be earned from the positive gap between yen Libor and the swap rate. Traders can borrow at a six-month yen Libor rate of about -0.0495% and invest in a 30-year swap yielding about 0.1425%. While the returns on offer may not seem too compelling, it's worth remembering the global stock of negative-yielding debt is now in excess of $17 trillion. Thirty percent of all investment-grade securities now bear sub-zero yields, meaning that investors who acquire the debt and hold it to maturity are guaranteed to make a loss. Investors are eking out their basis points where they can get them.  Cormac Mullen is a Cross-Asset reporter and editor for Bloomberg News in Tokyo. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. Learn more. | 
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