Talk that the BOJ was preparing even more stimulus to be announced at next weeks central bank meeting certainly helped the Nikkei and also sentiment for most core Asian exchanges. After yesterdays 13% fall in Nintendo shares today was reasonably quiet closing just 0.8% higher on the day. The Shanghai and Hang Seng indices were both aided by the confidence and closed around 0.4% each. In late US session both China300 and the Nikkei are down around 1% with HSI off just 0.5%.
Everyone was waiting for Mario Draghi and the ECB announcement which resulted in a reasonably dull morning session. Upon the prepared remarks the market were well behaved until the Q+A session began. Bunds started to sell-off during the comments together with the DAX but questions around “possible rule changes” circulated and Bunds became flavour of the month again. All core equity markets liked what they heard and so markets began to recover from their lows. Europe closed off their lows with confidence for the end of the weeks session tomorrow. BREXIT has been involved in almost every market conversation for the past five months but so todays meeting between the UK and France did not achieve much other than the “Get on with it” statement from Mr. Hollande.
US markets have finally seen a bit of a retracement from recent gains. It is not really a surprise we are seeing this move after seeing contract highs for over a week. Thursdays Initial Claims were marginally better than forecast and Home Sales printing 5.57M against an expected 5.48M. With all core US indices closing around 0.4% lower tomorrow close for the week could set the trend for the FED meeting next week.
US bond did attempt a sell-off early morning but had recovered all and gained by the close of US trading. 2/10 closed 1bp steeper at 88bp, with 10’s at 1.56%. After the mornings weakness Germany also reversed its course to close almost unchanged at -0.02%. This puts US/Germany 10yr spread at +158bp. Italy closed 1.24% (u/c), Greece 7.81% (+5bp), Turkey 10% (+18bp), Portugal 3.02% (-2bp) and Gilt 10’s closed 0.83%.
