Market Update

Investment markets and key developments Despite another week of geopolitical noise with the “fall” of the French Government, a few hours of martial law in South Korea and more noise around Trump, global share markets rose helped by solid US economic data and ongoing expectations for rate cuts globally. For the week US shares rose 1% helped on Friday by benign jobs data supporting the case for a December Fed rate cut. Eurozone shares rose 2.9%, Japanese shares rose 2.3% and [...]

Investment markets and key developments Against a backdrop of geopolitical risk and noise, high valuations for shares and an eroding equity risk premium, there is positive momentum underpinning sharemarkets for now including the “goldilocks” economic backdrop, the global bank central cutting cycle, positive earnings growth and expectations of US fiscal spending. US sharemarkets rose by 1.3% over the week (and are up by 24% over the year to date), Australia was up by 0.5% (and up by 9% over the [...]

Investment markets and key developments It was all about the US Presidential election this week. Despite concerns that the election outcome would be extremely close, the Republican victory was stronger than the polls and betting markets were suggesting into the lead up. Trump’s re-election into the White House led to a big rally in share markets (US is up 4.7% over the week to a record high, Australia +2.2%, Eurozone was down by 1.6% and Chinese shares up by 5.5%), [...]

Investment markets and key developments Global share markets rose over the last week helped by the absence so far of an Israeli retaliation against Iran & hopes that it will avoid disrupting oil supplies along with optimism for a continuation of “Goldilocks” - not too hot not too cold - economic conditions. For the week US shares rose 1.1% also helped by solid bank results kicking off the September quarter earnings reporting season, Eurozone shares rose 0.7% and Japanese shares gained [...]

Investment markets and key developments Global share markets were mixed over the last week as the war in the Middle East escalated further with Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on Israel and investors nervously waiting to see whether Israel’s response will threaten global oil supplies but solid US jobs data signalling that the US economy remains resilient providing support on Friday. For the week US shares gained 0.2% as the resilient jobs data pushed it back into positive territory, but Eurozone shares [...]

Investment markets and key developments Sharemarkets continued to rally this week, with the US and Australia at new records again, propelled by the US Federal Reserve’s 50 basis point cut to interest rates (the first for this cycle) and solid US economic data indicating that the economy is holding up. Shares rose despite the escalating tensions in the Middle East and poor seasonality that usually occurs in September for equity markets. US shares were up 1.4%, Australia 1.4%, Eurozone 0.6%, Japan [...]

Investment markets and key developments Markets were up this week, follow some weakness in the prior one. US economic data reinforced signals that the Fed will be cutting by 25 basis points next week but again no signs that the US economy is deteriorating significantly. The US S&P500 rose by 3.5% over the week, and is only 1% shy of its record high. The ASX200 was up by 1% and is nearly touching its all time high. Eurozone and Japanese shares [...]

Investment markets and key developments Economic data over the week was mixed, but mostly in line with softening, but not collapsing economic activity. Markets were waiting for the official US August non-farm which came out on Friday as a guide to whether the Fed will be cutting by 25 or 50 basis points at its upcoming meeting (on 18th September) and also to gauge the pace of the softening in the US economy but the data ended up being in a [...]

Investment markets and key developments Share markets mostly rose over the last week. The US S&P 500 fell earlier in the week on the back of weaker tech stocks as Nvidia’s earnings results beat but not by as much as had been priced into its share price, but ended the week up 0.2% boosted by okay economic data and low inflation data reinforcing expectations for Fed rate cuts. Eurozone shares rose 1.2% for the week and Japanese shares gained 0.7%, but [...]

Investment markets and key developments The swerve in market attention from recession risks and volatility just a few weeks ago back to hopes for a soft landing shows how fast and fickle financial markets can be! The focus was on central bank communication this week, in anticipation of comments from Fed Chair Powell at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium at the end of the week. Economic data was mostly okay which helped to lift equities, with most major equity indices up [...]