Week in Review: Markets Buoyed Ahead of FOMC Meeting The week draws to a close with risk assets largely buoyed by the prospect of an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve. On Friday, the main US stock market indexes all moved slightly higher. The Dow Jones gained 236.46 points (a 0.49% rise), the S&P…
BoJ board member Asahi Noguchi said today that the central bank could resume interest rate hikes once U.S. tariff risks recede, but emphasized that any tightening must “measured, step-by-step”. He warned that maintaining very low real interest rates for too long risks undermining the economy by pushing Yen lower and stoking undesirable inflation. A weaker…
The day has come, ladies and gentlemen. The biggest — and for some, the most important — company in the world, Nvidia Corporation, is about to reveal its earnings. My crystal ball is whispering that today, after the US closing bell, Nvidia will probably dump another set of jaw-dropping numbers on the table — perhaps…
Markets Risk-off remains the by default bias on global markets today even as there was little in the way of hard economic news to guide trading. High (US tech) valuations and low visibility on Fed policy are most often mentioned. Whatever the reason, yesterday’s selling/risk-off in the US also again spilled over to Asia this…
Last week delivered what should have been a moment of relief for global markets: the US finally ended its historic government shutdown, clearing the way for normal economic data flow to resume. Yet instead of sparking a rally, the reopening brought little comfort. U.S. assets struggled across the board. Equities came under pressure as investors…
Highlights include US-China trade talks, FOMC, BoC, BoJ, ECB and Aussie CPI Fed Interest Rate MON: Chinese Industrial Profit (Sep), German Ifo (Oct), EZ M3 (Sep), US Durable Goods (Sep), Dallas Fed (Oct) TUE: German GfK (Nov), US Consumer Confidence (Oct), Richmond Fed (Oct) WED: FOMC & BoC Policy Announcements; Australian CPI (Sep &…
Markets Euro area PMIs for October were on tap and came in to the strong side of expectations. Economy-wide activity picked up to 52.2 from 51.2, a 17-month high, driven by the services sector (52.6 from 51.3) on a steeper increase in new orders and employment. Germany in particular printed a sharp increase in services…
Is the Bank of Japan Truly Independent? In Japan in the mean time… One key theme in 2025 has been a weaker USDJPY, driven by diverging monetary policy paths. While the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has been preparing to raise interest rates, other major central banks, most notably the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed)…
A week with political paralysis in Washington ended with record highs on Wall Street — a telling sign of how investors are prioritizing Fed policy over fiscal drama. The U.S. government shutdown, now in effect after Congress failed to pass a funding bill, has frozen major data releases and paralyzed parts of the bureaucracy. Yet…
Markets UK Chancellor Reeves addressed the Labour Party conference in Liverpool against the backdrop of crashing polling rates and the looming November 26 Autumn Budget event. Yougov projected last Friday that Labour would only gain 144 seats in the 650-seat parliament compared with their 411 election victory. Reeves warned that harsh global headwinds will force…