The hawkish stance of central banks in advanced economies continued to center the stage in yesterday’s session. On the one hand, the Bank of England surprised with a 50 bp hike (25bp were expected by the consensus) to set the official interest rate at 5%, the highest level since 2008.
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In yesterday’s session, investor sentiment was soured by data showing the resilience of the US economy and its labour market. Private surveys showed that US companies added the most jobs in over a year in June, and the services sector expanded faster than expected, which investors fear will allow the Fed to continue raising rates.
In the last session of the week, a mixed US labor market report left investors trading cautiously. While the pace of job creation eased to the lowest reading in 30 months in June (209k) and the previous two months were revised lower, wage increases remained elevated (4.4% y/y) and the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.6%.
Investors started the week trading with a cautious mood, still digesting the mixed US employment report released on Friday and awaiting tomorrow's key CPI inflation data. Also, comments from San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly pointed to further interest rate increases even if signaling the end of the hiking cycle is nearing.
Investors traded in a subdued mood on Tuesday, as they awaited today’s US CPI report and digested the latest dovish comments from several Fed officials on Monday: Bostic, who said that inflation could be brought back to target without further rate hikes; and Daly, who said the Fed was approaching «the last part» of its hiking cycle.
A lower-than-expected reading of June’s US inflation led investors to project a lower path for the Federal Reserve’s interest rates. Concretely, headline and core inflation fell by 1pp and 0.5pp to 3.0% y/y and 4.8% y/y, respectively.
Investors closed the week extending their appetite for risk, albeit consolidating and taking profits after the rebound recorded across asset classes in the previous sessions. Sentiment was also lifted by a positive start of the Q2 corporate earnings seasons, with better-than-expected results for the reporting large US banks.
In yesterday’s session, investors weighed mixed signals from economic sentiment indicators in the US and in Germany. While the Conference Board consumer sentiment indices rose in July, signaling that private consumption might still have room to grow in Q3, the German IFO moderated.
The US Federal Reserve meeting centered the stage in yesterday's session with a 25bp interest rate hike, as expected by the consensus. The description of the economic outlook was very similar to June's, while the president Jerome Powell recognized that the last CPI inflation release surprised them slightly on the positive side.
With little novelties on the data front, investors started the week resuming their positioning to higher rates for longer selling off sovereign bonds, bringing yields up again. The surge was greater on long-term references and widespread across developed economies, with the US 10-year benchmark rising 9 bps. to hit multi-year highs.
As investors await the Jackson Hole conference for some guidance on monetary policy, European sovereign bond yields fell across the board in Tuesday's session. Meanwhile US short-term references posted gains, boosted by Fed's Barkin hawkish remarks on how the current strong economy would allow for higher rates should inflation pick up.
In yesterday's session, weaker-than-expected US economic data led investors to lower their expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate hikes at upcoming meetings.
Sovereign bond yields rose across Europe yesterday after an ECB survey showed consumer expectations for inflation edged up, which could pressure the ECB for further rate hikes. Inflation concerns were also stoked by Brent crude oil reaching a new year high after Saudi Arabia and Russia announced an extension of supply curbs through year's end.
In yesterday's session, investors' attention focused on the ECB monetary policy meeting, where interest rates were hiked by 25bp to 4.0% (depo) and 4.5% (refi). More importantly, the ECB said that these levels, if maintained for a sufficiently long period, might not need to be raised further to return inflation back to 2%.
Financial markets ended the week digesting Thursday’s ECB rate decision. If investors initially interpreted Lagarde’s speech as implying a slightly dovish bias going forward, several ECB officials pushed back against such interpretations on Friday, pushing European sovereign bond yields up, peripheral spreads to widen, and a steepening of the curve.
During yesterday’s session investors largely digested the Fed’s hawkish pause on Wednesday, positioning further into the narrative of a soft landing for the US economy and higher interest rates for longer. Thus European and US government bond yields rose in the medium and long term, and either fell or remained unchanged in the short term.
Yesterday’s session saw global equity markets mostly lower and government bond yields rising as investors continued to digest the “higher for longer” interest rate narrative and some weaker than expected US economic data releases.
Investor sentiment diverged slightly on both sides of the Atlantic at the start of the week. In the US, the ISM survey showed a manufacturing sector close to recovery while Fed's Bowman gave hawkish signals on future interest rates. This pushed Treasury yields higher while equities fared slightly better, with the Nasdaq up and the S&P500 flat.
Risk-off sentiment took over the market yesterday after the US JOLTS report showed an unexpected rise in job openings in August, which could support further rate hikes by the Fed, although comments from Fed officials on the day were mixed, with Mester leaning towards a hike at the upcoming meeting and Bostic opting to hold.
In yesterday’s session investors traded cautiously as they awaited today’s release of September US employment report, which should give further signs for the future path of interest rates. Weekly US unemployment claims, released yesterday, ticked up modestly as expected and set the stage for today’s data.