The headline news: The trade-war headlines are coming in thick-and-fast, with none of them truly substantial. Nevertheless, they have proven sufficient to belt market sentiment around, and dictate financial market activity, once again. A re-cap of the (dis-jointed) narrative is handy, for the benefit of context. Yesterday our time, markets trembled on news that, at one of his notorious “MAGA” rallies, US President Trump announced he thought the Chinese “broke a [trade] deal”. Stock markets fell.
The Return of Geopolitical Risk (the US and Iran Again)
For almost the entirety of this past year, the dominant force of motivation among investors fit within a rotation of just three major themes: trade wars, growth concerns and monetary policy. Even when these matters weren’t under full steam, their influence and too many instances of sudden changes in the fundamental weather meant that they lack of bearing led to a similar absence of conviction in speculative performance – momentum if no
Risk Trends Trembles, Is it the ‘Crazy’ Fed’s Fault
Market’s suffered a painful correction this past week. From peak-to-trough, the benchmark I like to refer to as a measure of hold-out enthusiasm, the S&P 500, dropped nearly 8 percent. That is still a ways from the technical ‘bear market’ designation which is a 20 percent correction from peak highs, but that scale of loss from a seemingly indefatigable climber rattles confidence. To be clear, the slump in sentiment was not isolated to
The pound rallied to a new high after British MP reject leaving the EU with a no-deal. As the rejection passed by 312 votes to 278, the pound gained 2% against the dollar, reaching new highs for the year of 1.3339, as investor's received the no-deal rejection as good news for the future of the British economy.
Us stocks rose on Wednesday as strong economic data boosted tech shares. The S&P 500 saw gains for a third day in a row, closing 0.69% higher at 2,810.92. The Dow Jones and the
The tariffs get hiked: The latest round of trade talks didn’t have the desired outcome. But nevertheless, the always forward-looking equity market closed last week on something of a high-note. It was a choppy day’s trade in Asia as the news filtered through that an agreement between the US and China in Washington wouldn’t be reached. Ultimately though, and just like the last time tariffs were hiked, financial markets handled the news with aplomb. The simplest explanation for why there wasn’t a h
Not with a bang, but with a whimper? Without all the fire and fury that we saw in December, markets are pricing in once again a slow down in global economic growth. It could be strongly argued this is evidence of how important US Fed support is to equity market strength – but that’s a drum to beaten (over-and-over-again) for another day. Fundamentally, traders are quietly re-pricing for a world where economic growth will be weaker than once thought. Such behaviour has been long evident in Chines
UK Competition and Markets Authority have formally blocked the proposed £7.3 billion takeover of Asda by Sainsbury's causing the merger to collapse.
Corporate earnings reports see European stocks set to open slightly higher. The FTSE 100 rising 9 points to 4780. Whereas Wall Street ended Wednesday's session lower following mixed US corporate results.
Despite beating analysts expectations UBS reported a 27% fall in net profit for it's first quarter when compared to the same period
Risk-assets up, but trade was tepid: The overnight session was, on balance, positive for risk assets, though the conviction behind market-moves was missing. The S&P500 – the natural barometer for market-mood currently – experienced a middling day. It’s closed more-or-less flat, having made a failed foray higher throughout Wall Street trade, to have sold off right-below crucial resistance at 2800. For the bulls in the market, circumstances didn’t fundamentally change last night. The short-ter
Opening Week Liquidity – We are heading into the first trading days of the new year
though it is not the first full trading week of 2020. That is an important distinction for those keeping tabs. Consider the throttling in activity and speculative appetite through the past week. The holiday conditions of the Western World drained market depth to effectively hobble any effort at establishing or extending trends – though there were a few notable sparks of volatility that were the result of th
Written by Kyle Rodda - IG Australia
First trading day of the new year: Traders picked-up right where they left-off in the first trading day of 2019. Hardly a true microcosm by any means, but the last 24 hours could be considered an appropriate metaphor for how analysts expect markets to behave in the year ahead. Dire warnings out of Asia about global growth, backed-up by lukewarm activity in Europe, finished by a wildly fluctuating Wall Street. Trading conditions haven’t totally returned t
A Return to Extreme Volatility and Realization It Won’t Stay This Quiet for Long
Any way you cut it, the markets are experiencing extreme levels of inactivity. And, for those that are satisfied with the superficial and textbook interpretations of the mainstream measures, this seems like a cue to leverage exposure and commit to the decade-long bull trend which blossomed under the controlled conditions. Previously, traders would have been readily satisfied by the readings and thrown in with
Fear of an increase in protectionism from the United States causes Asian equity markets to dip.
Profit warnings rise 29% quarter on quarter to 58 FTSE listed companies. Retail sector leads the way, and its expected the earnings shall continue due to uncertainty in the future.
Brexit secretary Raab says that the ‘no deal’ option is still on the table. GBP opened marginally down, but came back and has now gained from the Friday close.
G20 central bank leaders have warned that
Written by Kyle Rodda - IG Australia
A pull-back amid interesting activity: Markets received their slingshot higher and continue to swing about in both directions. That’s the key takeaway from last night’s trade; of course, that’s all too general, though – akin to explaining a rally in the market to their being more buyers-than-sellers. Yes, it’s self-evidently true, however it does little to answer the question of “why?”. Overall, market activity in the last 24-hours has provided a much gr
A week that’s (so far) under-delivered: Anything can happen in the space of 24-hours in financial markets. But as we enter the final day of trade in global markets for the week, activity today is shaping up as being just as tepid as that which we’ve experienced in the week’s first four days. It was hoped some new, market-moving information may have been delivered in what was a back-loaded week. Afterall, there was no shortage of event risk. However, thus far, despite a litany of risk events, man
Written by Kyle Rodda - IG Australia
A relief rally, now onto the next risk: The relief rally for market-bulls was sweet, but fleeting: it’s on to the next risk event now. Traders are being inundated by information, much of it speculative. Against this backdrop, volatility reigns: while off its highs still, the VIX is up 2.7 per cent on the day. To be clear, the Fed’s dovishness and Mr. Powell’s-famous-Put is underwriting the potential for future bullishness. But market participants can’t a
Wall Street ended in the negative on Monday as investors digested mixed results from the latest batch of bank earnings. Goldman Sachs reported better than expected earnings, however its shares fell 3.8% due to first quarter numbers showing net profits fell by 21% YoY. Citigroup earnings also beat expectations, although saw a 2% fall in overall revenue.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% to 2,905.58 after having three consecutive weeks of gains. The Dow Jones ended the day down 27 points at 26,
Written By Kyle Rodda - IG Australia
The bullish week continues: The pointy end of the week has arrived, and so far, the news flow is lining up well for the bulls. The big release, perhaps for the whole week, was this morning’s FOMC Minutes. Naturally, the information is old, relevant mostly to the December 19 period in which the central bank met. But given the market turmoil experienced since then, along with January’s nascent recovery, this set of Fed minutes has taken on slightly greater
We Have Unresolved Trade War Issues Guided by Rumor or Complete Blackout
We closed out this past week to a broad swell in risk appetite. This enthusiasm wasn’t consistent for the global markets throughout the week, however, with most of the asset benchmarks that I follow for scope were struggling until the Friday pop. The exception to the rule was once again the seemingly impervious US equity indices. Whether you were evaluating sentiment for the Dow and S&P 500 through the week or the
Dear IG community,
There will be some changes to some of our Asian markets over the upcoming Lunar New Year, starting Monday 4 Feb. We will continue to make out of hours index prices throughout any breaks (excluding Taiwan and Malaysia).
See the table below for the relevant information.
Another ‘Brexit Breakthrough’ Falls Apart
Yet another potential breakthrough in the Brexit stalemate seemed to be hashed out at the beginning of this past week following hours of legal negotiation and closed doors discussions. Supposedly, a draft bill was worked out that both the Prime Minister and top European Union negotiators were comfortable moving forward with. If there were only two parties which needed to be satisfied in this divorce, that would be that. However, there are multiple p
Stock markets continue to recover: Global stocks have maintained their bounce. It’s looking more like a market that is searching for it’s next high now, as price action, from a technical perspective, suggests the recent wave-lower is over. Hence, from here, considering trade-war risks, and therefore anxiety in the market, remains high, the matter becomes whether stock indices are preparing to pop in a new higher-high, or whether what we will see is a new lower-high. The result of that simple bin
Australian data draws global interest: Australia’s remarkably weak growth figures captured attention, both locally and abroad. The numbers conveyed in yesterday’s GDP were truly disappointing. Growth in the final quarter of 2018 was a paltry 0.2 per cent, and after another set of revisions to previous data, the annualized growth rate fell to 2.3 per cent. Each figure was quite an undershoot of expectations: for one, economists were expecting the quarterly number to come-in-at 0.3 per cent in sea
Another record-reaching session: US stocks have notched-up another record high, as the S&P500 closes in on the 3000-mark. The ASX200 yesterday came close to its own psychological milestone, nearing the 6700-level. The highs came on a light-day’s trade on Wall Street, however, with US markets trading-in a shorted session in ahead of the Independence Day holiday. Currency markets were more volatile, with commodity currencies climbing courtesy of several positive trade balance data out of New Z
Asian market gain whilst Chinese shares hit a 1 month high on hopes of a government stimulus package.
Hedge funds bet on higher government bond yields extending the USD gains, and prompting a gold sell off.
Oversupply worries continue with oil causing a drop in prices.
Despite Google's Alphabet multibillion dollar fine, shares jump on results to a record breaking all time high.
Crypto markets currently up but generally trading in a range.
Asian overnight: A po
Written by Kyle Rodda - IG Australia
US traders return: It’s nice to be back to some normal programming. The big-wigs on Wall Street have returned to their desks and volumes across the market are looking far healthier. After last week’s sell-off and volatility, and well before the meaty part of trade this week, traders appear to have had their appetite for risk whetted. Only slightly, of course: there is an acute awareness that the next seven days will hurl up some major events and some sig
174
89
75
38
35
26
24
24
21
21
20
18
18
4
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
