My views are my own and they do not constitute investment advice. My views are derived from Equiduct’s unique data set which represents a clean retail signal free of distortion from institutional investors and therefore are telling of what the sentiment of European retail investors is.
Without further ado, let’s dive right into it!
Last week …
Didn’t hit the heights of the previous week but still saw high turnover numbers which came in just short of €2.9billion.
January was a fantastic record-breaking month for Equiduct, but February has been even better so far, and we are currently on course to set a new average daily volume record.
Last week witnessed more earnings season driven volatility, whilst Japan elected Sanae Takaichi to be the Prime Minister.
US job creation figures came in far higher than expected whilst US inflation numbers on Friday were cooler.
The STOXX 600 and CAC40 both reached new highs last week, partially thanks to strong Q4 results from the likes of Safran and Hermes.
Dassault Systems was our second most traded stock on Wednesday after their Q4 results prompted a drop in price of 20%.
Adyen experienced a similar sell off in Amsterdam on Thursday and was our most traded stock turning over €52million.
This week …
Looks like it could be a little more subdued for markets.
We kick off the week with a US federal holiday for President’s Day whilst some Asian markets will be closed for Lunar New Year.
So it will be a slow start to the week but is likely to pick up as the week progresses.
Economic events are a little more low key compared to last week.
We still have the latest ZEW Economic Sentiment Index update from Germany, inflation numbers from the UK and Japan and US FOMC minutes are due on Wednesday after close.
There are also plenty of Q4 updates due this week from the likes of Orange, Repsol, Airbus and Renault and this is where we are most likely to see volatility.
Last week’s Economic data from the US painted a picture of a strong economy with markets at record highs. However, revisions to previous month’s data showed that the US is in a low hiring and low firing position.
Unemployment is very low at just 4.3% and two quarter point interest rate cuts are currently priced in for this year. We also have mid terms elections due by the end of the year so expect Donald Trump to try to sway voters with a fresh round of tax cuts.
AI continues to worry markets with huge levels of expenditure from the world’s biggest tech companies. It’s not just a matter of “when will we see the returns?”. The threat to existing business models and to jobs is now starting to raise a new set of questions. I think we’ll continue to see AI fuelled volatility across markets for quite some time.
That’s all from me, until next week… Happy investing!
Carl
