Thursday's session carried a sharply divergent tone between the two sides of the Atlantic. France's risk premium reached 140 bps as investors intensified their fiscal concerns and continued to lead a widening in sovereign spreads, with yields on German Bunds dropping amid safe-haven flows. European stocks fell markedly, with France leading losses.
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Wednesday's session carried a cautious tone. U.S. stocks were mixed and European equities fell broadly, while crude oil edged higher and TTF natural gas surged sharply, reversing recent declines. In FX markets, the dollar strengthened moderately, weighing on the euro.
Investors traded cautiously in Tuesday's session. Equities posted losses across the U.S. and Europe, and sovereign yields were volatile even as energy prices declined. The U.S. 30-year Treasury yield surged to levels not seen since the early 2000s, despite finding a partial reprieve after NY Fed President John Williams signaled no urgency to deliver the next rate hike.
Monday's session exhibited a risk-off tone after U.S. President Trump rejected Iran's proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Brent oil and TTF gas closed higher, and stocks declined across the board, with U.S. equities underperforming Europe (the former was dragged down by its IT overweight, while the latter was cushioned by its energy-heavy composition).
Markets ended the week on a constructive tone, with news of diplomatic negotiations in the U.S.-Iran conflict driving oil and gas prices lower and feeding into risk-on sentiment. Stocks rallied on both sides of the Atlantic, led by gains in the technology, financial, and consumer sectors. Early this morning, however, the pattern reversed.
Markets were mixed on Thursday, after a combination of higher energy prices following Saudi Arabia's interception of Houthi ballistic missiles targeting its energy infrastructure and a raft of hawkish comments from ECB and Fed officials (with ECB's Schnabel pointing to spreading price pressures) pushed up inflation expectations and policy rate odds.
Wednesday saw a risk-off session in financial markets, as stronger-than-expected September PMIs, hawkish ECB and Fed comments, and higher Brent prices prompted an upward repricing of inflation expectations and policy rates, with markets pricing more than four ECB hikes and almost four Fed hikes over the next 12 months.
Financial markets started the week on a positive note, as hopes of a diplomatic resolution to the war in Iran caused energy prices to fall, pushing inflation expectations lower on both sides of the Atlantic. This also eased central banks' rate hike expectations, although investors still price in three rate hikes by both the ECB and the Fed over the next 12 months.
Markets closed the week on a mixed note on Friday. Market odds for further interest rate hikes rose, with investors discounting three hikes for the Fed and three to four for the ECB over the next 12 months. The ECB's Lagarde and Vujcic pushed back somewhat against these market expectations, explaining that the bank will look beyond higher energy prices alone when deciding its monetary policy.
Wednesday's session delivered a broadly constructive tone, with European equities outperforming their U.S. counterparts in a session dominated by the Fed's rate hike. European indices closed higher across the board while U.S. markets were more mixed, with the S&P 500 eking out modest gains for most of the session before closing lower after the Fed's meeting.
The risk-off tone continued into Tuesday's session. Oil surged and extended September's run, driven by supply concerns and the disruption of Saudi Arabia's exports via the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Compounding the pressure, markets moved to a near-certainty on a Fed rate hike today.
Markets started the week in a distinctly risk-off mood, shaped by a combination of surging energy prices, AI sector uneasiness, and strong market expectations for a Fed rate hike ahead of Wednesday's policy decision. Equities fell broadly, with European indices underperforming their U.S. counterparts.
The future path of central bank official interest rates continued to be the main driver in financial markets, as investors reacted to the US Federal reserve meeting and to several ECB members’ speeches.
In yesterday’s session investors traded with a cautious mood as they await key US CPI data to be released this afternoon. Bloomberg consensus expects the headline and core indices to increase by 0.3% m/m, leaving the y/y rate at 3.4% and 3.7%, respectively.
In the first session of week, investors traded with an optimistic tone following the release of better-than-expected economic data in the euro area. In particular, the 2.1% m/m increase in Germany's industrial production in February hinted that one of the laggards in economic growth in the region for the past quarters might have bottomed out.
In yesterday's session, new data supported investors' expectations that interest rate cuts could begin this summer, which sent euro area and US sovereign bond yields down. Specifically, weekly unemployment benefit claims rose in the US, and the minutes from the ECB's March meeting confirmed officials are confident inflation is moving in the right direction.
In yesterday’s session investors continued to assess the probability that the Fed will deliver 3-4 rate cuts this year given the strength of recent macroeconomic data. In particular, the February PCE deflator grew 2.5% y/y, up from 2.4% last month, and manufacturing activity rebounded sharply in March as the PMI increased to 50.3 from 47.8.
Economic activity data and central bank decisions centered the stage in yesterday’s session. On the one hand, the Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged and hinted that the next move could be a rate cut, as there have been “further encouraging signs that inflation is coming down”. The Swiss National Bank cut rates by 25bp to 1.50%.
In the last session of the week, yields on sovereign bonds continued to increase, modestly, as investors’ expectations on official interest rates continued to be revised to the upside. In particular the probability of observing the US Federal Reserve cutting rates in June or earlier stands currently at 63% (96% earlier in the month).
Central bank communication preparing the ground to start easing the monetary policy stance soon was the main driver in yesterday’s session. In the euro area, the ECB kept interest rates unchanged and reinforced the data dependency approach, assuring that there is still some more progress to be done in domestic inflation.