📰 Macro-News round-up
#MarketNews
📊 Due to hotter-than-expected inflation statistics last week, U.S. markets were essentially flat. The yields on Japanese government bonds and 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds increased. This week’s main topic is the Fed’s policy decision. Fed rates are likely to remain higher than they were before the pandemic.
📈 Based on the latest inflation forecasts released by BlackRock today: “However, in 2025 inflation will pick up again as goods deflation disappears and high wage growth in a tight labor market keeps services inflation above pre-pandemic.” This view on the subject, fully coincides with the view we have given since December in these ATFX Connec reports.
🌍 Europe: Today’s CPI data shows stagnant inflation. Core inflation at 3.1%, annualized headline inflation at 2.6%. February inflation 0.6%. All of them in line with expected data.
🇨🇳 China presented better-than-expected macroeconomic results. industrial production jumped 7% versus 5.3% expected. fixed asset investment rose to 4.2% versus 3.2% expected. employment came out slightly weaker, with a 0.1% rebound in the unemployment rate, and retail sales came out at 5.5% versus 5.6% expected.
📈 The Shanghai stock exchange, the SSE Composite index, has just surpassed 3050 points in a clear uptrend, breaking the bearish pattern it had been dragging since last year.
🛢️ Commodities: As a result of news that Ukraine had been continuing its drone strikes on Russian oil refineries over the weekend, the oil market began higher this week. According to the most recent official data from India, domestic refiners processed 20.9 million tonnes of crude oil in February, which was more than the government’s 20.7 million tonne monthly target. Conversely, February’s crude imports were 18.7 million tonnes, a 6.7% YoY decrease. Activity and trade statistics from China also indicate that apparent oil demand was high in the first two months, up 6.1% YoY to about 14.4 MMbbls/d.
💼 Exxon Mobile CEO strikes back in the battle of the energy sector and ESG. Darren Woods has taken a series of legal actions to protect the interests of Exxon Mobile, the largest U.S. producer of ge gas and crude oil.
🥇 Gold continues to be extremely strong and traders seem to be taking more and more bullish positions in gold. The most recent positioning data from the CFTC indicates that managed money net longs in COMEX gold reached 159,560 lots during the most recent reporting week, up 28,500 lots for the fourth straight week. These are the largest bullish bets since the week ending March 8, 2022.
🌐 Geopolitics: In Russia, Putin is again elected president with high popular support. The media are quick to label this victory as electoral fraud. Paradoxical, after the US elections, where Biden -who is not the most charismatic man in the room- mysteriously obtained the highest vote record in US history, the media made an effort to silence the voices speaking of electoral fraud.
🌍 Meanwhile, the Ukraine conflict, which was supposed to cause Russia’s economic collapse and Putin’s downfall (not forgetting that according to the IMF Russia’s economy has grown strongly ahead of Germany’s) seems to be escalating. During this weekend, a military base in the Russian-populated Transnistria region, located between Romania and Ukraine, was attacked by the Ukrainian army. This could open another front closer to NATO’s borders.
🇬🇪 In addition, the region of South Ossetia, independent from Georgia, has asked Moscow for integration with Russia, which, if successful, could mean confrontations between Georgia, bordering Turkey, and Russia.
