Stocks moved higher in early trading Friday in Europe after a more upbeat session in New York, but still look like finishing down for the week. The FTSE 100 rose three-quarters of one percent to recover the 7,500 handle but is off by 2% for the week after touching its lowest level in seven weeks. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 rose on Thursday and are now slightly positive for the year.
Apple rose more than 3% after an upgrade to buy from Bank of America, which underpinned a more positive session for tech stocks. Tesla extended its weekly decline to 8% following yet more price cuts. Gold stabilised despite yields continuing their advance all week, with the US 10yr up something like 20bps to around 4.15%, the highest in five weeks. The dollar retreated a touch from a one-month high but is still set for a decent weekly gain. Oil has moved around a lot without any meaningful direction.
A surprise drop in US weekly jobless claims made a Fed cut in March even less likely. Initial claims dipped to 187k, whilst continuing claims also came in lower than expected. Chances of a cut now down to about 50% - but even that looks optimistic...unless the Fed is planning to more proactively manage policy and maybe front-load cuts this year ahead of an election...? The whole story this week seems to have been pulling back on rate cut expectations – whether it was comments from the ECB or Fed, jobs and retail sales figures from the US, or UK inflation data – the picture of multiple rate cuts this year is a lot less certain.
Sterling lost ground as UK retail sales were very weak – down 3.2% between November and December. Sterling was already running lower in the Asia session but extended the decline after the release.
Gold stabilised at the 50-day line after slicing through it, rejecting the bears’ attempts to force $2k.
Finally, the first episode of our new podcast series – Overleveraged - is here (and here)!
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