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 tale of two cities”: As far as Australian markets go, they’ll be defined, broadly-speaking, by the unfolding “tale of two cities” story in global markets. That is: the renewed optimism about the US growth outlook, versus the deterioration in global economic prospects, led by the slowdown in China’s economy. The Australian economy is heavily geared to the latter, so the hunch is our fortunes will be more greatly impacted by that variable. But it won’t be clear cut, and that’s where the uncerta
The US and China have agreed a temporary ceasefire on additional tariffs on each others goods at the G-20 summit in Argentina to allow for trade talks to continue in the new year.
Dow futures soared more than 450 points as investors have reacted positively to the US-China news. Nasdaq futures also rose around 2.7%, followed by S&P 500 futures which jumped 1.7%.
The dollar depreciated on Monday as investors looked to take up positions in riskier assets, such as the Australian do
Asia share markets mixed, China up on stimulus hopes
GBPUSD hits a one year low as Brexit fears continue.
Sterling’s slump guided the FTSE on a stellar rally.
USD/TRY poised for continued big volatility swings over US/Turkey meeting.
Oil price steady after sliding 3% yesterday.
Asian overnight: Asian stocks were largely higher, with Japanese indices providing the one outlier amid a wider rally led by rampant upside for Chinese and Hong Kong stocks. One major drag
Sentiment boost: The unpredictable ebbs and flows of volatile global markets delivered a positive outcome overnight, as equity markets recovered lost ground courtesy of a healthy boost of positive sentiment. The increased investor optimism came following news that US and Chinese officials are in talks to renew trade negotiations. This comes only days from the next round of tariffs due for imposition on Chinese imports into the US from the White House, which will rise to the value of $US50b worth
Deal done: Hopes were whetted during overnight trade from the news that the US, Mexico and Canada had agreed to a revised “NAFTA” agreement. To be (re)named USMCA – the US-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, a clear declaration of the Trumpian neo-Nationalist, “America First” agenda – the trade agreement reconfigures the North American trade consensus, with a skew towards US economic interests. It was apparently the Canadian’s who finally caved in to political and economic pressure on the trade pact, backi
Reports over the weekend have indicated that the US and China are in the later stages of trade talk discussions in a deal which could see tariffs and sanctions lifted on both sides. Donald Trump tweeted over the weekend asking China to remove all tariffs on agricultural products and that trade talks are "moving along nicely".
Asian equity markets reacted positively to the trade talk progress; the Nikkei rose 1%, whilst the Shanghai Composite increased by 2.5% and the Hang Seng jumped 1.2
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
Remove the Political Bias, Focus on the Volatility
There has been plenty of political risk keeping the markets at a steady simmer these past months. Some situations like Italy’s budget stand-off with the European Union and the Brexit negotiations are more overt concerns. However, the general rise of populism and the erosion of cross border diplomacy (trade wars, sanctions, failed trade deals, etc) represents a more systemic risk. Yet, despite the ubiquity of this fundamental influence, 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
From the Data, Growth is Top Concern Again
If we were to gauge how much market movement is arising from scheduled event risk relative to those unexpected winds from the headlines, I would put greater emphasis on the latter. That can make for difficult trading conditions considering updates like the coronavirus spread do not abide a clear time and distinct categorical outcomes. In this kind of environment, it is more difficult to establish clear and productive trends as there is not a clear
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
Sentiment weaker; but ASX to rise: SPI Futures are indicating an 11-point gain at the outset for the ASX200 this morning. It's perhaps a surprising result, given overnight activity. The chorus of pundits calling an economic slowdown grew louder, backed up by weak data and some unfavourable headlines. The Australian Dollar is better reflecting the dynamic: it's fallen through the 0.7100 level to eye support at 0.7040. Perhaps the weaker A-Dollar is behind some of the expected lift in Aussie stock
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
US-China Trade War Moving Beyond Boundaries
As expected, the relief from trade wars didn’t last long. Not a week after US President Trump and EU President Juncker announced an armistice on tariffs between the two dominant economies, the former revived pressure on its favorite target: China. Trump had issued threats of escalating tariffs against its trade-dependent counterpart over previous weeks, but the impact of the warning seemed to come with shorter half-lives than what we had experienc
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
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
Written by Kyle Rodda - IG Australia
Friday session: Friday capped off another horror week for Wall Street. It was US equities’ worst week since March. Traders are currently operating within a volatility trap – and there are few indications this will soon end. The VIX is elevated, above 23 at the last reading, but occupied time above the 25-mark at stages during the week. Volatility is an active trader’s friend, and for the most part the opportunities it has thrown have been relished. Liqui
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
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
Written by Kyle Rodda - IG Australia
The pattern continues: Wall Street indices have been swinging about madly again. The pattern continues: an open, a rally or fall, then a retracement or recovery. Today we’ve had an open, a rally, then retracement, then a recovery again. There were stories behind this price-action. Everything that happened overnight appeared perfectly explicable. One wonders though if the swings in trading activity are being overly attributed to headlines. Or perhaps it’s
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
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
Growth fears ease; risk taking subdued: Risk appetite wasn't terribly high overnight. But in saying this, the persistent, vexatious concerns regarding the global growth outlook has continued to abate. Markets have become used to modifications in the growth outlook manifesting in a powering of risk-on behaviour. Given the economic backdrop, the reasons for this are pretty intuitive. Just as far as last night's trade, though, this relationship didn’t hold quite so strongly. There were clear signs
US GDP data capped-off last week’s trade: Trade closed last week on something of a puzzling note. The attention, from a macro-economic point-of-view, was fixed in on US GDP data. Amidst all the fears of slower global growth on one hand and hope for a nascent global economic turnaround on the other, the US growth figures were being viewed as a tangible insight into the cogency of each point of view. Ultimately, the data provided little support for one over the other – and perhaps even deepened th
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