Last week …
Was unspectacular with a continuation of the relatively low volumes we have seen throughout September.
Monday saw markets rise, helped by a positive reception for Meta’s new AI assistant Muse along with lower oil prices.
Oil prices crept back up on Wednesday and Thursday as Donald Trump pondered a US ban on diesel exports and Houthi rebels continued to attack Saudi energy facilities.
Donald Trump’s meeting with China’s Xi Jinping was the potential flashpoint of the week but this proved to be uneventful with little of significance emerging from the summit.
Frankfurt had a particularly busy week with turnover up 33%. Turnover of €252million was the highest since June. Rheinmetall was a big reason for this as the German weapons company was our second most traded stock last week with turnover just under €70million. Vonovia and SAP were also in our top twenty most traded stocks.
We’ve seen increased activity across our Nordic markets in September with Copenhagen having its busiest week since Q1 and Helsinki having its busiest week this year.
This week …
Sees Q3 come to an end and Q4 kicks off with US jobs figures due on Friday.
Q3 was mostly relatively subdued in terms of volumes. Obviously, it always includes the quieter summer period but September has also been a slow month.
We have seen energy driven inflation spikes as the Middles East conflict has rumbled on throughout the summer with little hope of a resolution anytime soon. Iran had a new peace proposal rejected by Donald Trump over the weekend and he now knows that there is no achievable agreement that can be reached which would allow him to claim any sort of victory before the mid term US elections. Trump has claimed that the conflict will be resolved very quickly after the mid-terms but I don’t think many people believe that is likely.
Having survived the initial onslaught, Iran now has the upper hand with petrol prices hitting record highs in the US and around Europe. The pressure on Trump is mounting every week and he will almost certainly be punished severely by a US electorate that was never in favour of this war in the first place. Will he lash out? It will be interesting to see what his next move is. He tried to ban a section of the US media from the White House last week before a judge ruled against him. With oil prices pushing inflation upwards, analysts now price another US interest rate rise in October at around a 70% chance. This will enrage Trump further as he has been very vocal previously about his desire for interest rates to come down.
Oil prices will probably be the main driver of volatility again this week. The US jobs figures on Friday are another potential catalyst. We will get French, German and Italian inflation numbers on Wednesday. So there’s a good chance this week will be busier than last. Will we get more apocalyptic warnings about AI? Could there be a breakthrough in peace talks between the Ukraine and Russia? Let’s see how the week progresses.
That’s all from me, until next week… Happy investing!
Carl Rogan
