After yesterday's historic rout in the market, there were signs of stabilization in overnight trading with most markets trading higher, with the key catalyst a report from MNI that the Fed may end its rate hikes as soon as this coming spring.
US stocks were set to open sharply firmer after two days of losses that wiped out the S&P500’s gains for the year and left the tech-heavy Nasdaq index teetering on the brink of falling into the red. Losses were concentrated in the technology sector, as investors dumped their holdings of FAANG shares and pushed the Nasdaq index to seven-month lows and energy shares too had dropped in line with a 6 percent oil price slump S&P 500.
“High-flying momentum stocks have come off in a fairly spectacular fashion. At one point Apple and Amazon accounted for 40 percent of U.S. equity gains and people were just recycling money into the winners,” said David Vickers, senior portfolio manager at Russell Investments. “That’s come off the boil and set the cat among the pigeons... We’ve seen a lot of reflexivity, when selling begets selling, the market starts to turn over, people take profits, it leads to another leg down and so on.”
That fed through to Asia on Wednesday, taking MSCI’s index of ex-Japan Asia-Pacific shares almost half a percent lower, but it clawed most of the losses to trade flat, with MSCI’s all-country benchmark was flat too, attempting to snap two days of falls.
Chinese stocks closed in the green and near session highs, rebounding from Tuesday's drop as Asia closed mixed, but it was Europe that showed the most promise with the Stoxx600 solidly in the green, led by Italy where BTPs rallied from the open, after a report that Deputy PM Salvini may be open to budget revisions; Salvini then denied the report, clarifying that he’s only open to tweaks and won’t compromise on the main issues.
Italians bond yields fell up to 16 basis points initially, putting 10-year yields on track for their biggest daily drop in almost a month but the market gave up some of its gains after the denials. Sentiment was then dented again, and the EUR snapped lower after Ansa reported that the European Union has rejected Italy’s 2019 budget - as expected - and that the Excessive Deficit Procedure would be warranted on Italy. Still, despite the expected escalation in the standoff between Italy and Europe, the Estoxx and DAX pushed higher but were off best levels with banks and telecoms leading gains as Italy's FTSE MIB outperformed peers with local banks +1.5%.
However, it was a report from wire service MNI just after 6am that caught the market's attention, when Market News International reported that the Federal Reserve is starting to consider at least a pause to its gradual monetary tightening and could end its cycle of interest rate hikes as early as the spring, citing senior people at the Fed they didn’t identify.
While a Dec. rate hike is all but assured, the debate will become more lively beginning at the central bank’s March meeting and certainly by June, MNI says. The paradox, of course, is that according to the Fed's own dot plot there will be at least 3 hikes in 2019, so for one or more Fed presidents to engage in such an ECB-esque trial balloon of defiance of Chairman Powell must mean that the disagreements within the FOMC over the future of monetary policy are truly boiling over.
While it is still very much unlikely that the Fed will halt its rate hikes in the spring absent a rout in stocks and bonds, the MNI trial balloon sent futures back to session highs...
... and slammed the Bloomberg dollar index back to session lows.
US Treasuries and the Eurodollar strip also pared losses and faded Wednesday’s bear steepening after the MNI report; that said, Fed rate hike expectations are steady on Wednesday morning with December 2018 pricing in 19bps, and the next 25bps increase expected in March 2019. The U.S. 10Y TSY yield is 1bp to 3.07% with December T-Note futures -20 ticks to 119-04+; U.S. 2/10s +1bp to 26bps; U.S. 5/30s steady at 43bps.
Today's modest gains immediately sparked positive commentary: "We view the sell-off as overdone and a bull-market correction, with valuations that have become more compelling,” Jason Draho, head of asset allocation, Americas, at UBS Global Wealth Management wrote in a note. "We recently increased our overweight to global equities on the view that the markets are already pricing in growth and trade risks."
Still, while the Fed trial balloon helped preserve upside momentum in risk assets, investor sentiment remains susceptible to minute to minute volatility that’s rocked markets since October as traders have to contend with President Trump tape bomb unpredictability and demands for lower rates as corporate credit spreads at two-year highs reflect investor angst about borrowing costs.
In FX, the euro got an early boost and Italian bonds rallied after the abovementioned La Stampa report that Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini may be open to budget revisions; it trimmed gains after his League party denied the report, and as the EU was said see Rome’s budget at serious non-compliance risk. The pound was little changed against the dollar, after earlier rising on the back of broader weakness in the greenback; Britain’s budget deficit widened in October as spending rose at the fastest pace in 11 years. Australian dollar rebounds from a one-week low hit very early in Asia as a recovery in oil prices combined with exporter demand to trigger short-covering ahead of U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
In commodities, WTI also halted yesterday's dramatic rout near $54 a barrel after API showed that U.S. crude inventories unexpectedly fell last week against doubts over OPEC’s plans to cut output. Emerging-market shares and currencies were stable. Bitcoin advanced after a recent sell-off
Expected data include mortgage applications, durable goods orders, jobless claims and existing home sales. Deere and Metro are among companies reporting earnings
Market Snapshot
- S&P 500 futures up 0.5% to 2,653.75
- STOXX Europe 600 up 0.5% to 352.66
- MXAP down 0.4% to 149.96
- MXAPJ down 0.1% to 480.09
- Nikkei down 0.4% to 21,507.54
- Topix down 0.6% to 1,615.89
- Hang Seng Index up 0.5% to 25,971.47
- Shanghai Composite up 0.2% to 2,651.51
- Sensex down 0.7% to 35,212.54
- Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.5% to 5,642.77
- Kospi down 0.3% to 2,076.55
- German 10Y yield rose 1.6 bps to 0.366%
- Euro up 0.1% to $1.1381
- Italian 10Y yield rose 1.8 bps to 3.241%
- Spanish 10Y yield fell 0.9 bps to 1.638%
- Brent futures up 1.8% to $63.63/bbl
- Gold spot up 0.2% to $1,224.29
- U.S. Dollar Index down 0.1% to 96.77
沒有留言:
張貼留言