Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
"Intelligent Insight"
This is an edited version of a live discussion with Head of Investments for Walk The World Funds and Nucleus Wealth, Damien Klassen. As we start the new financial year, how are the markets looking and what are they key trends ahead?
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This is our weekly market update, where we start in the US, cross to Europe and Asia, and end in Australia, and we also cover commodities and crypto, as I get my ideas straight for the next leg of the year. In essence, AI has driven markets hard, especially in the US, but market breadth is narrow, and risks remain elevated.
Shares in New York ended lower on Friday, reversing modest opening gains after the latest inflation data showed that the disinflation narrative was intact, widening ever so slightly the door to a pivot to rate cuts. So an early rally fizzled as investors digested in-line inflation data and weighed political uncertainty after the U.S. presidential debate where the shaky performance from U.S. President Joe against Donald Trump has just ratcheted November’s U.S. election uncertainty up substantially.
Data showed U.S. monthly inflation was unchanged in May, an encouraging development after strong price increases earlier this year raised doubts over the effectiveness of the Fed’s monetary policy. The Commerce Department report also showed consumer spending rose marginally last month, fueling optimism that the U.S. central bank could engineer a much-desired “soft landing” for the economy.
There was a late wave of selling the magnificent seven, with a 3 per cent tumble in Meta. Amazon, Alphabet, Apple and Microsoft each closed more than 1 per cent lower though Tesla edged 0.2 per cent higher.
Wells Fargo noted that upcoming events, such as the November elections and potential delays in disinflation, may cause episodes of market volatility in the months ahead. Worth reflecting again on the fact that thirty percent of the S&P’s returns this year have come from Nvidia alone. It was now the most expensive stock on the most expensive market in the world and the Magnificent 7 accounts for 71% of the S&P 500 Index’s year-to-date return. Tightrope time?
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This is weekly market update, starting in the US, Europe, then Asia and then the US, as I get my thoughts organised!
This week, punctuated by a Wednesday US holiday, saw markets taking a breather following recent volatility and record highs. The Nasdaq had hit record highs on Thursday, boosted by strong gains in tech, and indications of a gradual easing in the labor market and inflation levels.
But on Friday, in New York, the S&P 500 closing modestly lower thanks to the quarterly expiration of about $US5.5 trillion of options during the quarterly “triple witching” in which derivatives contracts tied to equities, index options and futures mature. Around 18 billion shares changed hands on US exchanges, which is 55 per cent above the three-month average volume. The options’ expiration coincided with index rebalancing as well.
Remember that S&P 500 is up 14.6% this year, but most of the broader index’s gains have been concentrated in the information technology and communications sectors – up 28.2% and 24.3%, respectively. The rest of the market has been more subdued: the next best performing sector, utilities, is only up 9.5% year-to-date. More than 7% of stocks are down this year. So the huge price gains, including Nvidia’s 155% year-to-date run, have stirred worries that the tech rally might be overheated.
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This is our weekly market update, is the best way I have found to organize my thoughts for the week and to track what’s going on. We start in the US, crosses to Europe, then Asia, and Australia, and we also cover commodities and crypto.
In the US, the Nasdaq eked out a fifth straight record closing high on Friday following gains in Adobe and other technology-related shares, while the S&P 500 and Dow ended slightly lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.15%, to 38,589.16. The S&P 500 lost 0.04%, at 5,431.6 and the Nasdaq Composite added 21.32 points, or 0.12%, at 17,688.88.
For the week, the Dow was down 0.5%, the S&P 500 rose 1.6% and the Nasdaq was up 3.2%. So the S&P 500 ended its four-day run of record closing highs, but still climbed more than 1% for the week. The S&P 500 technology sector rose 0.5%, hitting another record high close. The communication services sector rose 0.6%, leading gains among sectors.
Adobe shares jumped 14.5% a day after the company raised its annual revenue forecast on more demand for its artificial intelligence-powered software. But the Russell small-cap index fell 1.6%, adding to recent losses, while the S&P 500 industrials sector was down 1%.
The big issue this week was the Feds post decision press conference, with investors still trying to gauge how soon the Federal Reserve might be able to cut interest rates following Wednesday’s cooler-than-expected CPI report and the Fed’s revised dot plot, which lowered rate-cut expectations this year from three to one.
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Wednesday was it turned out, a game in two halves, with a slightly better than expected CPI read in the morning, before the Fed’s no change decision later, but impacted by a more hawkish stance in the subsequent press conference. Risk-on assets had rallied after the CPI report showed the US core consumer price index fell to the lowest in more than three years. But later, the Federal Reserve penciled in just one quarter point interest-rate cut this year, down from three seen in March.
The CPI core goods inflation was in negative territory, but the news was not all as good. Remember that to account for the ongoing questions over measuring shelter prices, Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues chose to focus on the so-called supercore of services excluding housing, a measure particularly influenced by wages. The good news is that both indexes fell last month — a bit. The bad news is that they’re still far too high for comfort and continue to make it hard to cut rates.
And The FED decided to hold rates, but played the data dependent, higher for longer card, again.
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This is my edit of our monthly economic and property review recorded with Nuggets News. Things are getting interesting!
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
In this week’s market review, as usual we will start in the US, cross to Europe, then Asia, and end in Australia, and in passing we cover commodities and crypto.
I have been highlighting how the data driven approach by Central Banks is a problem, because as new data lands, markets try to respond, making swings in sentiment a core feature of every day.
On Wednesday we got a rate cut from the Bank of Canada, who became the first major central bank among the Group of Seven countries to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.75 per cent, with governor Tiff Macklem saying if inflation continues to ease, and our confidence that inflation is headed sustainably to the 2 per cent target continues to increase, it is reasonable to expect further cuts to our policy interest rate. Inflation in Canada has slowed this year to hit a three-year low of 2.7 per cent in April. While inflation has stayed below 3 per cent for four straight months, it is still above the central bank’s 2 per cent target.
The BoC joins Sweden’s Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank in bringing down rates and more central banks are weighing rate cuts.
And on Thursday the European Central Bank made a widely expected decision to cut its deposit rate from a record 4% to 3.75% even though inflation remains above its 2 per cent target and recently ticked up. So, the ECB was prepared to cut despite inflation clearly remaining sticky, despite persistent wage pressures and despite some signs the European economy might be improving.
Not only is it one of the very few times that the ECB makes a turn on monetary policy before the Fed, it is also the first time the ECB starts cutting rates after a tightening cycle without facing a recession or crisis. But what’s less clear is what Lagarde does next. Having delivered the historic first cut, she was very reluctant to give many clues on when the next one would be. Watch the data, she said.
And in fact, global stocks pulled back from an all-time high on Friday after surprisingly strong U.S. monthly jobs data dimmed hopes that the Federal Reserve would soon follow euro zone and Canadian interest rate cuts, causing Treasury yields to shoot higher.
So the big question is, with the Bank of Canada cutting on Wednesday night, and Lagarde going on Thursday night, does this give the RBA any more room to deliver the rate cut many Australian households and investors crave? The short answer is no!
The RBA is expected to be among the last central banks to cut rates because the Australian inflation pace is above most major economies. At 3.6 per cent, CPI remains well above the RBA’s 2.5 per cent target and a reason why money markets are only fully priced for an easing in one year’s time.
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
This is our weekly market update. In this show we look across the market action, starting in the US, then Europe, Asia and Australia and also touch on commodities and crypto, not least because this helps me get my thoughts in order as to what’s really going on. Top line, this past week’s performance on the markets continues to fluctuate as new data emerges, and continues the mix signals we have been seeing all year as central banks remain data dependent.
MSCI’s global equities index staged an afternoon rebound on Friday as investors repositioned for month-end, while the dollar fell with Treasury yields as data showed a modest rise in U.S. inflation in April. After spending most of the session in the red, the MSCI All Country World Price Index turned positive ahead of a rebalance of the index. When Wall Street trading ended, the global index was up 0.57% falling earlier. For the week, the MSCI index was showing its second consecutive decline but a monthly gain.
In the end, on Friday, US stocks were mostly higher late, having reversed a morning swoon, helped by traders truing up on the final day of trading in May, though the tech leaders fluctuated after rallying strongly for most of the last five weeks.
Over the last five days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average continued to show weakness, having at one point slumped by -3.99% to 38,111, a level was last seen at the end of January and at the beginning of May, after which DJIA touched a new all-time high of 40k in mid-May. But on Friday the Dow surged off its early losses to finish 1.51 per cent higher to 38,686.32, its biggest daily percentage gain since November 2023 as month-end repositioning drove a late sharp rally. The S&P 500 gained 0.80%, to 5,277.51 its highly monthly close, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.01%, to 16,735.02 having been lower until the final minute of the session. The VIX tumbled 10.71 per cent to 12.92. For the month, the S&P 500 rose about 4.8%, the Nasdaq jumped 6.9% and the Dow climbed 2.4%.
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The roller coaster ride continued again this week on the markets, as traders were dazzled by strong corporate results from NVIDA underscoring the power of the AI super cycle on one hand, and by really mixed data signals on the other thanks to a raft of better-than-expected purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data from across the northern hemisphere, while rates higher for longer came back into focus, with hope of rate cuts being squeezed further.
The economic data points to a strong economy and inflation that won’t go away. Couple yesterday’s PMI data with a slew of Fed speakers this week and the Fed minutes, which suggested the central bank could keep rates high for longer than expected, as well as a string of warnings on inflation from Federal Reserve officials, investors have realized that either the Fed has no idea what it is doing when it comes to inflation and the path of monetary policy or investors are starting to sense that the Fed rate hiking cycle may not be over. Financial markets now fully price just one quarter-point interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve this year – compared to the six built into futures prices at the start of 2024.
European equities have traded lower at the end of the week, tracking weakness in Asia and also Wall Street as increasing anxiety over sticky U.S. inflation and high interest rates battered sentiment towards risk-driven assets.
China was hit with a wave of negative sentiment this week as a trade war with the U.S. appeared to have escalated.
A Wall Street sell-off rattled Australian capital markets on Friday as bond yields rose and investors trimmed rate cut bets, sending technology, retail and banking sector shares sharply lower.
So standing back, signs of the consensus belief in a soft landing, interest rate cuts and resilient growth in earnings are everywhere. There’s the grind higher in share market indices despite rich valuations and non-existent risk premiums (the difference between earnings yields and bond yields).
It’s worth remembering the words of an eternal bull in the late, great Charlie Munger, who urged investors to “invert, always invert”. “Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backwards. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don’t we want to go, and how do you get there?”
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
This is our weekly market update. After recent wobbles on concerns of higher rates for longer, the Bulls have been stomping through the markets this week. Data dependency is a marvellous thing because each shiny new data point has the potential to swing the market violently. Some might well be detecting signs of weakness below the surface, suggesting further reversals ahead.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average passed the 40,000 level for the first time ever earlier in the week, and record highs have also been seen by major indices in Europe and Asia as investors took advantage of expectations of lower interest rates globally. These markets have remained relatively resilient even as U.S. macro data have shown signs of softening, with the PMI and ISM surveys declining in April, labour-market data worsening, consumer confidence dropping and the housing market deteriorating again.
The bulls of the ASX are running again this week in a classic “bad news is good news” rally. Lingering concerns that sticky inflation could force the Federal Reserve or the Reserve Bank to raise rates have suddenly been extinguished. For all that worry about higher-for-longer rates exposing cracks in the local economy – the weakening consumer spending we’re seeing, the rising corporate insolvencies, weakening consumer and business sentiment – the ASX 200 has quietly added 4 per cent within two weeks, and is now up 3.3 per cent this year. Since October 2022, it has gained 22 per cent.
Never mind that valuations look stretched and equity risk premiums on both sides of the Pacific (the difference between the equity market’s earnings yield and the 10-year bond yields) are almost non-existent. Local investors continue to plough into their market darlings in the firm belief that rate cuts are coming.
The latest edition of our finance and property news digest with a distinctively Australian flavour.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/