London — Thursday’s global stock market was volatile as oil remained above $ 120 a barrel during the war between Russia and Ukraine.
PMI data for March remained strong and reassuring, with major European stock indexes rising very little and government bond yields hitting a few years’ highs at the beginning of the week.
Other than that, the focus was on a special NATO summit in Brussels, with President Joe Biden present to discuss further responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a month ago.
Erwin de Groot, Rabobank’s Chief Strategy Officer, said what the market will be, especially how unified NATO members remain, and how Biden will help Russia escape from gas. He said he was watching carefully what he could offer to European countries.
“NATO meetings are certainly important,” deGroot said. “At least you would expect members to come up with further escalation preparations that could occur in the Ukrainian War.”
Russia’s major stock market has also made a profit by resuming sales, although it has tightly controlled sales after it was closed for a few weeks after Moscow launched what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine. ..
MSCI’s major global equity index, which no longer includes Russian companies, recovered 8% last week, but is still above January levels by more than 7%, leaving the investor mood still fragile.
MSCI’s widest index of non-Japanese Asia-Pacific equities fell 0.6% overnight after further declines in China and Hong Kong, while Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average fell to its lowest level since 2015 for exporters. Because we supported the recorded yen, we recorded the highest price for 9 weeks.
It was the last at 121.65 yen per dollar, boosted by the expectation that the Bank of Japan would lag far behind other top central banks in raising interest rates.
MUFG’s currency analyst Lee Hardman said, “The sharp rise in expectations for the Fed’s rate hike is primarily against low-yielding currencies, where domestic central banks are expected to lag far behind the Fed’s tightening policy. It has benefited the US dollar. “
Hawkish
Promoting some of volatility, some of the FRB’s top policy makers on Wednesday to curb decades of high inflation, including the possibility of a half-percent rate hike at the next policy meeting in May. Showed that they are ready to take more positive action.
Then, on Thursday, Frank Elderson, a member of the executive committee of the European Central Bank in the Netherlands, said he would not rule out the ECB’s rate hike again this year.
This helped rekindle sales in volatile bond markets all year round, with rising global inflation and signs that central banks need to raise interest rates.
Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields rose 2.37% and German foreign bonds exceeded 0.52%, but oil and gas markets continued to skyrocket amid geopolitical uncertainties.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow would shake the energy market by demanding payments in the ruble of gas sold to “unfriendly” countries.
Prior to US trading, Brent futures remained unchanged at $ 121.67 a barrel, while US West Texas intermediate futures fell 41 cents (0.35%) to $ 114.5 a barrel.
Mark Jones
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