Following on from last Saturday’s geopolitics, it's no surprise that markets have gone through a see-saw. With safe haven assets shooting up.
The US November employment figure was a key release and showed a healthy gain of +199,000 (Oct: +150,000).
Coming into December provides a good opportunity to review November/YTD 2023 performance.
There is a clear theme at play in markets: Risk -On! The driver? Several
The risk-on mood has continued as odds of rate hikes remain extremely low while bets for rate cuts have risen dramatically
Economic data has been fairly light this week. Next week is key as we have the October inflation releases. Commodities have fallen back with Oil dropping
Global Central Banks decided to take a pause over further rate hikes, while the much-awaited October US Nonfarm Payroll data forecast a gain of +170,000.
While geopolitics is dimming the outlook, equity risk premium is not showing signs of increasing – in fact, it continues to fall.
On the economic front, we continue to see improvements in China and the US.
Quite a week in economics and politics. As if uncertainty around interest rates wasn’t enough, last week saw a massive flare-up between Israel and Gaza.
The year, so far, has fluctuated between “risk-on” and “risk-off” with Q3 starting to see markets become flaky.
The start to Q4 is carrying on from where Q3 ended. We’re seeing heightened volatility as bond yields continue their march higher.
Author of Zerohedge article "Wronger For Longer" argues that despite recent improvements, the notion they will return to post-2008 lows is very unlikely.
Markets are at key juncture. There is a feeling out there everything (as prescribed by textbooks) has been tried.
Main highlights last week were around the Jackson Hole summit and the BRICS summit.
The news was dominated by two sides of the world – upward revisions to US growth and worries over China.
It was a full week of economic news flow. We were waiting for two, main announcements which both concerned inflation.
On Tuesday (1st) we saw Fitch downgrade the US from AAA to AA+. The last time this happened was 5th August 2011 when Standard & Poors did the same thing
Economic news was dominated this week by interest rates from three, key nations/regions and it has not been without its surprises
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