Market movers today
In terms of data there are no global market movers in today’s session and markets will continue to focus on Trump’s protectionist measures and possible counter -measures from countries hurt by the announced tariffs. The political situation in Italy will also be on the radar.
The EU is expected to publish its draft guidelines for the future relationship between the UK and EU today. According to the press, we should not expect very detailed guidelines, as the EU wants the UK to concretise the relationship it wants.
The Fed’s Vice-Chairman Bill Dudley is set to participate in a roundtable discussion on St . Thomas, but the subject is the effect of the hurricanes on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Therefore, it is unlikely he will address the out look for monetary policy.
Meanwhile, in the Scandies, the big event of the day is Norges Bank’s Regional Network Survey, which is t he cent ral bank’s preferred indicator of the economic out look. In Sweden, we will follow Riksbank Governor Stefan Ingves and Deputy Governor Henry Ohlsson at tending a parliamentary hearing as well as the release of industrial product ion data. For more information, see page 2.
Selected market news
Global risk appetite has improved at the beginning of the week as concerns of a global trade war stemming from more protectionist US policies have eased amid Republican lawmakers and influential investors publicly questioning Trump’s intended tariffs on steel and aluminium. This morning, most Asian equity indices have followed their US counterparts into green territory, the USD has stabilised and US 10Y Treasury yields have risen 9bp from Friday’s low.
Following the defeat of the Democratic Party (DP) at the Italian election, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has resigned as DP leader. Meanwhile, Renzi will head t he part y’s talks in the at tempt to create a new government and has re-emphasised that the DP will not enter a coalition with either the League or the Five Star – the two ant i-establishment parties that stand as winners following Sunday’s vote. Going forward, the negotiations remain messy and the next important date will be 23 March when both houses of Parliament are due to come together for the first time. In our view, it remains unlikely that we will have an Italian government in place before May or June and at this stage we cannot rule out new elect ions in H2 this year.
The monthly house price sta istics from Real Estate Norway showed that house prices in Norway rose by a seasonally-adjusted 0.4% m/m in February, see chart. In addition, the details showed a further improvement in the sales-to-stock ratio, suggesting that house prices are very close to fully bottoming out . This reduces the downside risk of the economic out look ahead of today’s Regional Network Survey an d next week’s Norges Bank monetary policy meeting.
This morning, the Reserve Bank of Australia has as expected kept the cash rate unchanged at 1.5%. The accompanied statement was fairly neutral and AUD/USD is little changed post the announcement . Going forward, we st ill pencil in one rate hike over the coming 12M.
