Weekly Market Wrap 04/02/2022

This week has seen mega caps trading like meme stocks after poor earnings reports caused dramatic moves for some of the largest companies in the US. The Bank of England delivered an interest rate increase as expected, however voting numbers delivered some very hawkish indicators. The topic of rising rates was echoed by the ECB as President Christine Lagarde hinted that higher levels of inflation may be persisting longer than expected. US jobs data shocked markets on Friday after the data showed an increase in jobs growth, despite the consensus predicting a slowdown.

US Market 

The S&P 500 is up 0.78% at 4,466 this week, however increased levels of volatility are still present. PayPal and Meta Platforms joined Netflix to become the most recent casualties of poor earnings. Both stocks experienced falls of more than 20% in a single day this week, with Meta losing over $200 billion of its market cap on Thursday after showing a loss in userbase for the first time ever. Better than expected US jobs growth sent markets lower as yields resumed their climb. The increase in jobs growth has increased the already prominent worries form investors around high inflation in the US.

UK Market 

The FTSE 100 ended the week up 0.69% at 7,518. The Bank of England delivered a 25 basis point rate hike, taking the BoE rate to 0.50% as expected on Thursday. Investors were surprised to see that the central bank was only one vote away from a 50 basis point rise, which would’ve seen rates increase to 0.75%. This would’ve been the largest interest rate increase since 1995. UK consumers heard on Thursday that energy bills are set to rise by significantly in April, after price caps were lifted by a record 54%.

European Markets                                                                    

The Euro Stoxx 50 lost 1.23% this week, falling to 4,086 whilst the DAX lost 1.37% and the CAC 40 gained 0.20%. On Thursday the European Central Bank appeared to turn a corner in their extremely dovish policy stance after President Christine Lagarde recognise that inflation had remained higher for longer than expected and told investors “The situation has indeed changed”. This hawkish commentary sent European stocks downwards on Friday morning. Europe are expected to return to a 0% interest rate by the end of the year.

 Fixed Income

The US 10-Year Treasury yield ended the week up 9 basis points at 1.90%. Some areas of the US government bond yield curve have begun to flatten as investors remain concerned that a number of interest rate hikes could hurt the long-term growth of the US economy.

 Commodities

Brent Crude rose 3.85% to $93.50 this week, a seven-year high. On Friday OPEC+ decided on a small increase in production, with the March production target set to be 400,000 barrels per day.

The Week Ahead  

Monday – Australia retail sales

Tuesday – Canada trade balance

Wednesday – Japan producer prices

Thursday – US CPI; US Initial jobless claims

Friday – UK GDP

*Price changes as of last week’s close unless stated otherwise.