We saw a mixed session in Asia with good performances by the Nikkei (+2.7%) and the Hang Seng (+1%) but had Shanghai spoil the party with a -0.5% decline. That performance was actually rather good as we had seen the Shanghai Index down over -4% intraday. In Europe all Indices opened lower but spent the rest of the day rallying to close small positive. Numbers out of the States mid-session were insufficient to move markets or sentiment ahead of the Fed announcement. As US cash opened we saw an early sell-off – led mostly by Apple (-5.5%) and Boeing (-9,5%). Boeing gave poor earnings forecasts for the full-year 2016 whilst Apple claimed fewer unit sales also mentioning (twice) China’s slowdown hitting the base line.
Fed, as expected announced unchanged, whilst declaring to be visual on developments following the gradual path. Stocks did not particularly like this outcome trading lower into the close. DOW finished down 223 points (-1.43%) with similar declines for the broader S+P but the NASDAQ lost 2.2% (Apple -6.55% sharing the blame with Netflix -6.8% amongst others).
After the close a huge FB (Facebook) number beats estimates – which may bolster much needed sentiment into overnight trading.
Today we saw the separation between oil and stocks. The first day in a while that traders looked elsewhere for excuses as WTI closed higher this evening at $32.05 and Brent $32.79. Also, Gold continued its rally from yesterday but waited until the last 30mins of US trading to post the rally and was last seen at $1127 (+$5 +0.5%).
US Treasuries were disappointing until the FED came into play. We saw US 10’s hit a daily high yield of 2.05% but by the end of US trading the yield had dropped below the 2% level to close 1.99%. We will have to wait to see the effects upon the European markets but here is where they closed by the end of London trading: DBR (Germany) closed 0.45% closing the spread +154bp.
Italy 10yr closed 1.50% (u/c); Greece 9.07% (-22bp); Turkey 10.75% (-4bp) and finally UK 10yr Gilt closed 1.71% (+2bp).
Not too much on the FX side today but one pair is worthy of a mention.. The Brazilian Real lost another 1.4% today reaching 4.11 as reports of police raids in four cities over allegations of money laundering related to state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (according the Bloomberg news). GBP turned negative in late US trading to close the day 1.1% lower at 1.4230 (the days low price).
