Market movers today
The Norges Bank meeting will take centre stage in the Scandies today. We expect Norges Bank t o broadly ‘pre-commit ‘ to a Sept ember hike, see more on page 2.
The Bank of England is also meeting but it’s a ‘small meeting and there will be no press conference or updated projections. Instead, keep an eye on the minutes, which will give info on the likelihood of an August hike. We believe the chances of an August hike are shrinking as data has disappointed a bit and uncertainty gone up recently due to trade war tensions.
In the afternoon, focus will turn to the US again with the releases of the Philadelphia Fed survey and initial jobless claims. After the comments yesterday by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell that the Fed is for the first time starting to hear about ‘decisions to postpone investment , postpone hiring…’, a lot of focus will be on survey data in the coming months to gauge if the trade war uncertainty is starting to impact the economy.
Finally, we have US house price data and euro consumer confidence and the ECB’s Jens Weidmann is due to speak in Paris.
Selected market news
It has been a very uneventful morning in the financial markets with few headlines overnight. The trade tensions between China and t he US are taking a ‘backseat ‘ and movements in Asian equity markets have swung between modest gains and losses this morning. US bonds yields rose yesterday as there is less focus on the trade tension and 10Y US government bonds yields are yet again approaching the 3% level.
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve once again reiterated that policy rates are going higher but at a very gradual pace, at the ECB conference in Sintra yesterday.
