The Weekly Bottom Line: Consumer Resilience on a Timer

U.S. Highlights Results from the midterm elections showed the Democrats maintained control of the Senate but lost their majority in the House of Representatives. U.S. housing data continue to slide in October, with housing starts down 4.1% m/m to 1.4 million units, while existing home sales fell 5.9% m/m to 4.3 million. Retail sales surprised […]

Weekly Economic & Financial Commentary: Economic Resilience Continues to Challenge the Fed

Summary United States: Even with Encouraging Inflation Developments, Economic Resilience Continues to Challenge the Fed In line with last week’s CPI performance, the headline PPI increased 0.2% sequentially, two-tenths below expectations. The resiliency of the U.S. consumer was also on display, as total retail sales increased a stronger-than-expected 1.3% in October, boosted, in part, by […]

Big Oil Price Drop

Market movers today A quiet start to another week where central banks remain on the spotlight. German October Producer Price Index will be released today, and in the evening Fed’s Daly will be on the wires. Later in the week, we expect Riksbank to hike its policy rate by 75bp, which is largely priced in […]

China COVID-19 Worries Resurface

Stocks in Asia fell this Monday on news that China reported its first death in six months from Covid on Sunday, and two other deaths followed. The news obviously spurred fear that the government could make a U-turn on its decision of easing the strict Covid zero rules, and wreak havoc in Chinese markets, yet […]

Stock Sentiment is Grim

Markets Boston Fed Collins joined the growing chorus of Fed officials trying to reshape market expectations. She said rates need to rise further and even kept the possibility of a 75 bps move on the table. But just as others did, she puts the focus on how high rates ultimately need to be instead of […]

One Eye on FOMC Minutes

The week is off to a relatively slow start, with Asia trading mostly in the red and Europe and the US poised to do the same. We don’t get many quiet weeks these days but this may turn out to be one of the few, with the US Thanksgiving bank holiday cutting the week short […]

RBNZ Might Need to Slam the Brakes in November as Economy Heats Up

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand will hold its last policy meeting of the year on Wednesday (01:00 GMT) and another rate hike is on the cards. After five consecutive 50-basis-point rate increases, policymakers will be pondering an even larger move in December, as, far from the economy cooling, inflationary pressures are at risk of […]

Bitcoin Tests the Strength of Support

Market picture Bitcoin has lost 4% in the past 24 hours, once again testing the strength of the $16K area. Ethereum is down 7.8% overnight to $1120. Other leading altcoins in the top 10 were down 5.5% (BNB) to 10.6% (Dogecoin). Total cryptocurrency market capitalisation, according to CoinMarketCap, sank to $795bn, losing 4.9% overnight and […]

Euro Drops Below 1.03 as Risk Aversion Climbs

EUR/USD has resumed its downswing and is in negative territory on Monday. In the North American session, the euro is trading at 1.0238, down 0.81%. The ECB holds its final policy meeting of the year on December 15th, and it’s practically a given that the ECB will raise rates. But by how much? The current […]

Dollar Clings to Correction

The Dollar Index has risen since last Tuesday, adding 2.5% to lows at 105.16. Speculators paused selling off the US currency in response to data and comments from Fed officials implying a higher interest rate target. The dollar’s pullback could also be described as a market breather, implying a pause after a rather aggressive decline […]