Market Update

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets mostly fell over the last week on fears that still rising inflation will trigger faster rate hikes and recession. While US and European shares both bounced on Friday as US rate hike fears abated a bit, for the week they fell 0.9% and 1.1% respectively. The fall in Eurozone shares was magnified by the risk of a permanent shutdown of Russian gas flowing through the Nordstream 1 pipeline to [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets mostly rose over the last week on hopes that central banks will be able to tame inflation without causing a recession. However, it was messy with Eurozone shares - where the risk of recession is greatest - first making a new bear market low earlier in the week. Australian shares followed the global lead higher with very strong gains in IT, consumer discretionary, health and property stocks. Bond yields [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Recession fears dominated over the last week pushing US, European and Japanese shares down, although Chinese shares (having already had a 35% bear market) rose. Australian shares were little changed with gains in utilities, energy and industrials offset by falls in property, IT and telco shares. Recession fears also pushed down long-term bond yields, oil prices and metal prices with the iron ore price falling about 10% on Friday. And this [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets managed to stabilise and, in most major markets, bounce from oversold levels over the last week as there were no new hawkish surprises from central banks and weak economic data saw bond yields fall taking pressure of share market valuations despite increasing worries about recession. For the week (to date) US shares are up just over 3% and Australian shares rose by just over 1% led by IT, property [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets tumbled again over the last week as markets moved to anticipate even more aggressive rate hikes from central banks after the release of higher than expected US inflation data. For the week (so far) global shares are down around 6% and Australian shares are down by around 7%. The fall in the Australian share market was led by IT stocks which have been under pressures all year but also [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Sharemarkets came under renewed downward pressure this week (after a few weeks of rallying). Themes of stagflation risks, heightened recession odds, hawkish central banks and questions as to whether inflation has peaked or not continue to be the main drivers of markets. US shares were down by 2.2% with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down by a similar am. Australian shares are 4% lower (with energy, utilities and healthcare up but financials, real [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets mostly rose again in the past week as the rebound from oversold levels continued partly on hopes that some cooling in demand will take pressure of inflation and central banks, and as China started to reopen. European shares were little changed but US, Japanese, Chinese and Australian shares rose. The gains in Australian shares were let by resources, consumer staples and industrials offsetting falls in utilities where surging energy [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week It was another volatile weak in share markets with worries that rate hikes, cost pressures and Chinese supply disruptions would hit profits after downgrades from some US retailers and tech stocks. This left US and Eurozone shares down, but Japanese, Chinese and Australian shares rose helped by monetary easing in China. In Australia gains in IT, utility and material shares more than offset falls in consumer and energy shares. Bond yields [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week Share markets fell again over the last week with ongoing worries about monetary tightening to combat high inflation driving a possible recession. The plunge in global shares also dragged down the Australian share market which saw sharp falls in IT, material, property and industrial shares with only health stocks rising for the week. Global bond yields pulled back from their highs, oil, metal and iron ore prices fell and the risk [...]

Investment markets and key developments over the past week It was a turbulent week for markets after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.5% at its May board meeting. This outcome was expected by the market and economists and the market actually rose from comments by Fed Chair Powell that 0.75% rate rises was “not something that the committee is actively considering” which alleviated fears of an extremely aggressive short-term rate hike profile from the Fed. The [...]