European shares breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday, as earnings from companies including UBS and Maersk boosted sentiment, following an equity sell-off in the previous session driven by global growth fears. The continent-wide STOXX 600 .STOXX rose 0.6% after plunging nearly 2% on Monday over worries of an economic slowdown in China and rapid U.S. interest rate hikes. Miners .SXPP and oil .SXEP stocks were among the biggest gainers after slumping on Monday. Nearly all subsectors and regional markets were in the black. Chinese stocks .CSI300, .SSEC recovered from ...

Bond yields resumed their rise on Thursday as investor bet on aggressive global interest rate hikes, while the euro climbed after a heated TV debate saw French President Emmanuel Macron bolster his weekend re-election hopes. MSCI’s main world stock market index barely mustered a move amid the prospect of higher global borrowing costs, but Paris stocks scored a 1.1% jump after Wednesday evening’s clash between Macron and far-right rival Marine Le Pen. Although Le Pen came across as more polished and composed than in a TV duel for the presidency ...

Most Asian share markets advanced on Wednesday, following overnight gains on Wall Street, but trading was choppy as investors grappled with high U.S. yields and China’s cautious economic policy response to pandemic lockdowns. In a sign of the strange mood, the Japanese yen gained on the dollar, having fallen nearly every session in the past two weeks and repeatedly setting fresh 20-year lows, while spot gold XAU= fell 0.5% to its lowest in a week dragged down by higher yields. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose ...

Global bond funds witnessed massive money outflows in the week to April 13, as investors were worried that the Federal Reserve would start tightening its policy more aggressively to contain rising price pressures, which could slow economic growth. According to Refinitiv Lipper, global investors shed bond funds worth $14.5 billion in the reported week, compared with $1.15 billion worth of net disposals in the previous week. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield US10YT=RR hit a three-year high last week in the wake of hawkish comments from Fed officials. Meanwhile, data ...

European shares were set for their worst day in nearly two weeks on Tuesday as worries about the war in Ukraine, aggressive monetary policy tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve and a batch of upcoming earnings kept investors on edge. The pan-European STOXX 600 .STOXX lost 0.8% after dropping 0.9% last week. Travel .SXTP shares were among the biggest decliners after gaining the most on Friday. Russian forces tried to push through Ukrainian defences along almost the entire front line in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, launching what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ...

Stock markets made slim gains on Thursday ahead of a European Central Bank meeting that could herald tighter policy, as U.S. Treasury yields eased and the dollar retreated on hopes that inflation may be close to peaking. Traders were waiting for a European Central Bank meeting for possible clues on a clearer schedule for unwinding its extraordinary stimulus, as worries over record-high inflation trump concerns about a war-related recession. Ahead of the ECB’s decision, due at 1145 GMT, the broader Euro STOXX 600 gained 0.1%, with French shares adding 0.4% ...

Global shares were little changed on Wednesday, pausing after a six-day slump amid a mixed inflation picture, while floundering peace talks between Russia and Ukraine kept oil hovering near recent highs. Hawkish moves from the world’s top central banks as the Russian invasion of Ukraine pumped up inflation pressures have weighed on equity markets since the start of the year, with the MSCI World Index down around 10%. Data on Wednesday showed no let-up for Britain after inflation hit a 30-year high of 7%, although this came a day after ...

Asian bonds witnessed their biggest monthly foreign outflow in two years last month, weighed down by a strengthening dollar and higher interest rates overseas, and analysts expect such selling to continue in coming months. Overseas investors offloaded a combined net total of $7.87 billion in South Korean, Thai, Indian, Indonesian and Malaysian bonds last month, marking their first net selling since May 2020, data from regulatory authorities and bond market associations showed. Eugene Leow, a strategist at DBS Bank, said an unrelenting rise in the dollar rates due to a ...

World stocks slipped to their lowest levels in almost a month, the dollar held firm and selling again gripped the world’s biggest bond markets on Tuesday ahead of data expected to show annual U.S. inflation rising at its fastest pace in 40 years. With U.S. 10-year Treasury yields rising to new highs above 2.80%, levels last seen late 2018, unease that an aggressive policy response to inflation from the U.S. Federal Reserve could undermine economic growth weighed on sentiment. European shares opened 1% lower, Japan’s blue-chip Nikkei stock index shed ...

The euro traded higher and the spread between French and German bond yields tightened on Monday after incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron won a larger than expected share in the first round of the French election. With 96% of the votes counted for Sunday’s first round, Macron garnered 27.41% of the votes and far-right candidate Marin Le Pen won 24.03%. Macron will now go into a runoff against Le Pen on April 24. A Le Pen victory could send shockwaves through France and Europe in ways similar to Britain’s vote ...

U.S. investors remained net sellers of bond funds in the week to April 6 on rising prospects of rapid reductions to the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet alongside steady increases in policy rates. U.S. investors sold bond funds of $2.24 billion, compared with net withdrawals of $3.86 billion in the previous week, Refinitiv Lipper data showed. Minutes of the Federal Reserve latest meeting showed this week that officials “generally agreed” in mid-March to cut up to $95 billion a month from the central bank’s asset holdings as a second tool in ...

Pretending it did not happen probably does not help much. Given its track record in preceding the last four recession since 1990, the brief inversion of the U.S. bond yield curve between two and 10 years has unsurprisingly sounded alarms about another pending recession over the next 18 months. In broad brush terms, these inversions reflect markets’ belief that the Federal Reserve will have to move to ‘restrictive’ policies – with interest rate above long-term neutral estimates embedded in 10 year rates – in order to slow credit and the ...

The euro area economy is one of the most vulnerable to the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet the message coming from its sovereign debt markets is quite different. Bond yield curves plot borrowing costs across different maturities and are seen as a good indicator of growth and inflation trends. They are also closely watched financial market indicators. The recent, albeit brief, U.S. yield curve inversion when two-year yields pushed above 10-year yields was a warning to the markets, as that move is considered a harbinger of recession. To ...

US: Fresh price jumps prompt further tightening The Federal Reserve has laid the groundwork for a 50bp interest rate rise and an announcement of phased-in quantitative tightening at the 4 May Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. Fifty basis point rate hikes are also likely at the June and July FOMC meetings, in our view, with an eventual Fed funds peak of 3% in early 2023. Markets are not there yet, but this week’s upcoming data could push them further in that direction. The highlight will be the March consumer ...

Bank of Korea will hold rate decision meeting without its governor Bank of Korea (BoK) will meet on 14 April for its rate decision meeting. Given governor-nominee Rhee Chang-yong’s parliamentary hearing scheduled for 19 April, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will be held for the first time in the absence of a governor. Indeed, the absence of a governor makes it even more difficult to predict BoK’s decision-making in a situation where inflationary pressures rise and concerns about the future growth outlook grow. However, the Korean economy has shown its ...