The Waiting Game

As expected, markets were quiet overnight ahead of a deluge of tier-1 earnings, data, and the US FOMC policy decision over the rest of the week. Equity, currency, oil, and precious metals markets were content to range trade, with only Bitcoin showing some life, falling by nearly 6.0%. Bloomberg is reporting that it looks like […]

Directionless Trading as Investors Look for Clues What Fed’s Next Move is

Markets Core bond yields yesterday sought to recover some of the heavy losses incurred on Thursday and Friday last week. With (small) success initially, especially in the US. European bond yields were helped by comments from ECB’s Kazaks and Visco respectively advocating and not ruling out another 50 bps rate hike in September. But then […]

Bitcoin's Normal Sluggishness

Bitcoin has lost 3.5% in 24 hours, having rolled back to $21,100 at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Ethereum has lost 6.1% in the same time frame, to $1430. Altcoins in the top 10 have fallen from 3.5% (XRP) to 6.8% (Solana). Total crypto market capitalisation, according to CoinMarketCap, fell 3.7% to $971bn overnight. Bitcoin […]

Big Tech Earnings and Fed Meeting in Focus

Asian markets edged higher on Tuesday, drawing support from China’s technology sector as investors braced for another busy and potentially volatile week for financial markets. Overnight, Wall Street delivered a mixed performance thanks to the growing caution ahead of earnings from the tech titans, as well as the Federal Reserve decision on Wednesday. In the […]

By How Much Will Fed Hike Tomorrow?

Since the last Fed meeting, there have been some pretty wide variations on expectations. Initially, it was thought that the Fed’s latest 75bps hike was a one-off. Then inflation data came out, and that changed the calculus, with a bunch of exports expecting as much as 100bps hike. But comments from Fed officials sort of […]

NZD Jumps on Strong Inflation But Unlikely to be for Long

The annual inflation rate in New Zealand accelerated to 7.3%, a new high since 1990 and above average forecasts for 7.1%. The quarterly price growth of 1.7% also remains elevated, showing no deceleration in the last quarter. Short-term inflation figures above expectations have triggered a “classic” strengthening of NZD buying. However, we believe that the […]

More Tail Chasing

Wall Street did another U-turn overnight, finishing lower as the dearth of tier-1 data and the pre-FOMC media blackout left the FOMO gnomes chasing their tails once again. Wall Street closed modestly lower, ostensibly because Apple said it would slow hiring, joining its other tech-giant brethren. That was despite Goldman Sachs and Bank of America […]

Slower Hiring, Force Majeure, and Recession Worries

The US dollar was softening, and equities were recovering, when the market mood suddenly turned sour on news that Apple would slow hiring and cut spending in some businesses due to the recession fears, and Gazprom declared force majeure. Elon Musk recently announced he would cut 10% of jobs in Tesla, because he has a […]

Markets Assessing a Potential Top in Fed Rate Hike cycle

Markets Especially European markets yesterday showed a remarkable risk-on mood despite multiple event risks (ECB meeting, Italian political crisis, Russian gas supply to Europe, EMU PMI’s) looming large over the next days. Several (also hawkish) governors last week indicating the Fed won’t step up the pace of rate hikes to 100 bps provided some comfort […]

Markets Shaky ahead of ECB Meeting

A sense of caution has taken hold of financial markets as investors adopt a guarded stance ahead of another week packed with key economic reports and risk events. Asian shares got no love this morning, following overnight declines on Wall Street after Apple announced plans to slow hiring and spending growth next year. Renewed fears […]