Wall Street

Wall Street indices took the relatively rare step of ignoring its tendency to rally ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, and price action suggests there could be deeper pullback. Which may not bode so well for ASX 200 bulls who may be sleeping behind their wheel around a record high.

The yen suck in safe-haven flows on reports that the US government is considering limiting exports of AI chips. And given we have risk events and a US election looming, investors are likely questioning how exposed to risk they really want to be.

The S&P 500 trades just shy of its record high as we head into September, a month which averaged negative returns and closed lower about 55% of the time over the past four decades.

A weak ISM manufacturing report a day after a dovish Fed meeting (and on the eve of NFP) was just the ticket for risk off on Wall Street. GBP traders ignored the BOE's cautious stance on rate cuts.

Downwardly revised GDP for the US in Q1 weighed on Wall Street indices ahead of a key inflation report, yet the ASX and Nikkei managed to bounce form their lows. We look at where we think they might head next.

I suspect we're seeing the early moves of a pullback of appetite for risk in general, which saw traders push Wall Street indices and gold lower on Wednesday thanks to weak treasury demand. And it seems to be paving the way for the next leg higher for the USD.

With bitcoin effectively taking its general trend from the stock market these days, traders should take note that US indices are mixed around all-time highs and Nvidia (a key driver of the Nasdaq) trades below resistance ahead of a key earnings report.

US futures are pointing to a muted open after strong gains in the previous session, as the Federal Reserve begins its two day policy meeting and as earnings continue to roll in. The Fed is widely expected to leave rates unchanged. However, the market will be watching commentary tomorrow on the future path for interest rates in light of recent strong data. US Consumer confidence data is due later today and is expected to ease to 100 from 103.

U.S stock markets are on track to lock in their worst first-half performance in decades. The S&P500 is currently down over 15% in the second quarter and on track to lock in an ~20% decline for the first half of the year.

The S&P500 closed 2.33% higher overnight in its first session this week as the Juneteenth long weekend provided a circuit breaker, allowing investors to regroup after U.S equity markets plunged over 10% the past two weeks.

Despite data from China today that showed the Omicron outbreak appears under control and that Chinese economic data may have bottomed, it's been a disappointing day for U.S equity futures, giving back all of yesterday's gains and more

There’s no respite as investors continue dumping stocks and other risk assets

Investors continued to adopt simple strategy of ‘if it moves, sell it’ overnight, seeing equities bonds and commodities move broadly lower.

U.S yields punched to fresh cycle highs overnight on robust economic data and hawkish commentary from Fed Governor Brainard.

U.S. yields have surged higher again this week to their highest level since May 2019, after Fed Chair Powell opened the door to a 50bp rate hike at the next FOMC meeting, causing fresh pain for global bond markets.

This morning, the Federal Reserve followed the lead of the ECB last week to deliver a hawkish surprise. The Feds dot plots showed the median dot in 2022 rose to 1.875%, consistent with another six rate hikes in 2022, in line with market expectations.