Treasury yields fell as Federal Reserve Chairman Powell testified before Congress that rising inflation is likely to be transitory and that the central bank would continue to support the economy. The Bank of Japan left its 10-year bond yield target unchanged at about 0% after concluding its meeting and also kept the policy-balance rate at -0.1%.
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Jerome Powell maintained his view that strong inflation will be temporary and said that the US economy was still far from levels the central bank wanted to see before tapering its monetary support.
Investors turned their attention to the start of second-quarter earnings season and to inflation concerns in the US, after the consumer price index jumped to 5.4% yoy in June (4.5% yoy the core index). This level is the higher seen since 2008 and fuels speculation that the Federal Reserve will begin curbing asset purchases soon.
The S&P 500 Index closed at another record high as investors looked to a highly anticipated second-quarter earnings season, which will start today with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and PepsiCo Inc. European equities hit a record high with investors rotating out of cyclical sectors and into more defensive.
In the last session of the week, investors' sentiment improved and markets ended the day with positive results.
In a volatile session, investors’ sentiment was clouded by disappointing labour data in the US (new jobless claims unexpectedly rose to 373k during the first week of July) and uncertainty about the evolution of the pandemic. In Europe, the ECB confirmed a decision to modify its inflation target to a symmetric 2%.
Investors traded with a positive mood on Wednesday, easing concerns about a rapid withdrawal of monetary accommodation by the major central banks.
Financial markets ended the day with negative results, following the release of disappointing survey sentiment data in both the US (the services ISM fell to 60.1 in June from 64.0 in May) and in Germany (the ZEW sentiment indicator dropped from 79.8 to 63.3). In addition, industrial orders in Germany plummeted in May (-4% m/m).
During a session with low trading volumes (markets were closed in the US), investors recorded modest gains, fuelled by positive sentiment data across Europe (the service PMI was revised up by 0.3 points to 58.3 in June, the highest level since July 2007).
Investors ended the week on a positive note, following the release of solid labour market data in the US: non-farm payrolls rose by 850K in June while the unemployment rate remained broadly stable at 5.9%. As a result, equity indices rose in both sides of the Atlantic, reaching new records in the US.
Concerns over the evolution of the pandemic and, especially, the Delta variant worsened investors' sentiment in the last session of June. In addition, IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said that the access to vaccines is unequal across countries and is causing a "diverging recovery".
The Fed held its benchmark short-term interest rate and said it will continue to buy $80 billion in Treasury securities and $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities each month. Policymakers now see the first rate increase coming in 2023 instead of 2024.
In the last session of the week, investors traded with a positive mood amid robust employment data in the U.S. Non-farm payrolls rose by +559k in May (consensus expected +675k on average) and the unemployment rate dropped by 0.3 p. p. to 5.8%.
In the first session of the week, investors extended the positive tone seen during last Friday. In the euro area, economic data releases came in better than expected (EZ Sentix Investor Confidence rose in June to 28.0 from 21.0 and Spain's industrial production rose by 1.2% mom in April).
In yesterday's session investors traded cautiously following the release of better-than-expected Q1 GDP growth data for the euro area (revised up by 0.3 p.p. to -0,3%) and record high job opening figures for the U.S. (up by almost 1 million to 9.3 million in April).
In yesterday's session, investors traded cautiously ahead of today's U.S. CPI data for May (Bloomberg consensus expects +4.7% yoy) and the ECB monetary policy meeting (the focus will be on the updated macro projections and on the pace of net asset purchases under the PEPP, which will probably remain unchanged at 80bn per month).
In the last session of last week, European shares and the S&P 500 scaled new peaks while yields on U.S., Japanese and euro area government debt fell as investors embraced the easy monetary policies of major central banks.
Investors traded with optimism as they awaited for clues from the Fed about the tapering of asset purchases.
Yesterday, the prevailing mood in the financial markets was calm before the end of Federal Reserve's meeting. Investors expect the central bank to keep the pace of asset purchases unchanged until at least August or September.
In the last session of the week, positive economic data releases helped to improve investors' sentiment. June's consumer confidence in Germany rose to its highest level since August 2020 while in Italy it reached a record not seen since November 2018.