- The last trading session of the week saw rallies in European stock market benchmarks. Germany's DAX booked nearly 0.4% gains today and remained in areas close to historic highs.
- The mood on Wall Street is much more mixed. The technology NASDAQ is currently trading down 0.16%, the Russell 2000 is losing more than 0.91%, and the S&P 500 index is gaining just over 0.08%. Investors' attention today was mainly captured by reports around Adobe (great results and raised forecasts), Micron (performance warning in the face of a ban on the company's products in China) and Virgin Galactic (giving a date for the start of commercial space tourism services).
- Data from the University of Michigan indicated that annual inflation expectations are now at their lowest since 2021 - expectations for long-term inflation have also fallen. At the same time, current sentiment and consumer expectations fared positively;
- UoM data: 1 year inflation expectations came in 3,3% (previosly 4,2%) and current consumers sentiment came in 63,9 (previosly 59,2 and 60,2 exp.). Expectations index was much higher than expected and came in 61,3 vs 56,5 awaited by Wall Street and 53,4 previosly. Also long term inflation expectation eased to 3% from 3,1% previosly - bullish data didn't help US indices to rally;
- Waller and Barkin of the U.S. Fed have communicated that the Fed should continue the cycle of interest rate hikes until demand in the economy grows. Such an aggressive approach by Fed members may foreshadow that a recession in the US will be extremely difficult to avoid in the long term. In the wake of these comments, the EURUSD pair is seeing moderate declines.
- The best performing currencies in the FX market at the moment are the British pound and the Canadian dollar. The worst performing is the Japanese yen.
- The International Monetary Fund estimates that global economic growth will be 'below trend' in the coming quarters, and central banks' policies will require further tightening
- The Fed report indicated that the interest rate hike campaign needs to be cautious although the outlook for the final interest rate is subject to considerable uncertainty, core services price inflation (excluding the real estate market) shows no signs of cooling off
- Energy commodities are trading slightly higher. Oil is gaining in the range of 1%, while NATGAS is trading at nearly 3% plus
- Gold is trading marginally higher at $1,960 per ounce. Silver is gaining 0.9% with the price at $24.1. Palladium is the best performer, trading up nearly 2%
- Wheat is the best-performing agricultural commodity today, with uncertainty over the July grain deal in the context of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and the consequences of the Novaya Kahovka dam breach, as well as concerns around the drought driving commodity prices.
- This week's final session also brings an improvement in sentiment in the energy commodities market. WTI crude oil gains nearly 1.4%, while NATGAS adds more than 3%.
- Rising above $26,000, the price of Bitcoin at the end of the week gives hope to the cryptocurrency market. Investors welcomed CoinDesk's reports of BlackRock's planned creation of a Bitcoin ETF fund
