Weekly Market Update – 4th October 2024
Investment markets and key developments Global share markets were mixed over the last week as the war in the Middle East escalated further with Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on Israel and investors nervously waiting to see whether Israel’s response will threaten global oil supplies but solid US jobs data signalling that the US economy remains resilient providing support on Friday. For the week US shares gained 0.2% as the resilient jobs data pushed it back into positive territory, but Eurozone shares fell 2.2% and Japanese shares fell [...]
A FinSec View – Market Updates, Inflation & Interest Rates, Happiness Index & more….
27th September 2024 Australian Market Update We’re at the end of September but its two data points from August that were released in the past week that are the headline news. First, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) preferred inflation gauge, “trimmed mean inflation”, rose to 3.4% in August, indicating persistent underlying price pressures. The RBA is expecting this gauge to remain above its target band until late 2025. Second, annual inflation or Consumer Price Index (CPI), was 2.7 per cent in August, down from [...]
Weekly Market Update – 20th September 2024
Investment markets and key developments Sharemarkets continued to rally this week, with the US and Australia at new records again, propelled by the US Federal Reserve’s 50 basis point cut to interest rates (the first for this cycle) and solid US economic data indicating that the economy is holding up. Shares rose despite the escalating tensions in the Middle East and poor seasonality that usually occurs in September for equity markets. US shares were up 1.4%, Australia 1.4%, Eurozone 0.6%, Japan 3.1% and China 1.3%. The US [...]
Weekly Market Update – 13th September 2024
Investment markets and key developments Markets were up this week, follow some weakness in the prior one. US economic data reinforced signals that the Fed will be cutting by 25 basis points next week but again no signs that the US economy is deteriorating significantly. The US S&P500 rose by 3.5% over the week, and is only 1% shy of its record high. The ASX200 was up by 1% and is nearly touching its all time high. Eurozone and Japanese shares also rose while Chinese shares fell. [...]
Weekly Market Update – 6th September 2024
Investment markets and key developments Economic data over the week was mixed, but mostly in line with softening, but not collapsing economic activity. Markets were waiting for the official US August non-farm which came out on Friday as a guide to whether the Fed will be cutting by 25 or 50 basis points at its upcoming meeting (on 18th September) and also to gauge the pace of the softening in the US economy but the data ended up being in a grey zone. After the US was [...]
A FinSec View – Local & Global market updates, Writing a Will?, Exchange Rates 101 & much more….
30th August 2024 Australian Market Update Having started the month with a 6% market correction in reaction to a sharper than expected uptick in US unemployment we finish the month exactly where we finished July. Nothing to see here, onwards and upwards!! After lukewarm if not cold predictions of a likely rate cut this side of Christmas, financial markets at the start of this week started confidently pricing in a cut by Christmas and another two by May 2025. Bond traders no longer believe Reserve [...]
Weekly Market Update – 2nd September 2024
Investment markets and key developments Share markets mostly rose over the last week. The US S&P 500 fell earlier in the week on the back of weaker tech stocks as Nvidia’s earnings results beat but not by as much as had been priced into its share price, but ended the week up 0.2% boosted by okay economic data and low inflation data reinforcing expectations for Fed rate cuts. Eurozone shares rose 1.2% for the week and Japanese shares gained 0.7%, but Chinese shares fell 0.2%. Australian shares [...]
Weekly Market Update – 26th August 2024
Investment markets and key developments The swerve in market attention from recession risks and volatility just a few weeks ago back to hopes for a soft landing shows how fast and fickle financial markets can be! The focus was on central bank communication this week, in anticipation of comments from Fed Chair Powell at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium at the end of the week. Economic data was mostly okay which helped to lift equities, with most major equity indices up (Australia +0.6% and US +0.3%). The [...]