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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