Market Talk — July 12, 2016

Having seen new highs made in the US markets overnight, Asia responded with its own rally coupled with an “Abeonomics” boost. With renewed support, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to follow through with additional measures that many claim are required to help an aligning stock market, even if that means a weakening currency. The Nikkei rallied 2.5% today but at the same time the JPY fell 2%; both Shanghai and Hang Seng rallied just under 2% also. In late US trading all Asian indices have added additional ground.

Europe had three reasonably big stories floating around today and they were the UK, Italy and Spain/Portugal. In the UK PM Theresa May taking over from David Cameron – seen by the markets as adding some stability and so we saw a 2% rally in GBP. In Italy the government wishes to use public finances the stabilise some banks which the European banking rules forbid, without creditors also taking a loss. These talks were played down by Angela Merkle and were not evident in peripheral sovereign spreads but will remain focus of many dealers attention over the next few weeks. Both Portugal and Spain have breached budget deficit rules/targets and so we await a decision from the European Commission to see if they face potential fines! Late in the day the BOE’s Mark Carney answered questions in relation to claims that the BOW maybe exaggerated BREXIT concerns.

After an impressive rally yesterday, today we saw even more. With indices setting record levels the data releases in line with expectation, we see that confidence continues to build. As stocks improve so we see recent safe-haven performers return their run with large declines over the past few trading days. We still have some interesting data points later in the week so it will be interesting to see the Weekly closes for the DOW but also the broader S+P.

Gold lost more that $20 (1.6%) today with silver also declining 0.65% as safe-haven assets were liquidated with the return of confidence. Treasuries also declined lead by the long end. 2/10 US curve steepened again today closing at 82bp. 10’s closed +7bp at 1.51%. Germany also lost ground with 10yr Bund closing +7bp at -0.9%. The spread US/Germany closes +160bp. Italy 10yr closed +2bp at 1.22%, Greece 7.69% (+2bp), Turkey 8.95% (+3bp), Portugal 3.1% (+2bp) and UK Gilts +7bp at 0.83%.