Equities have risen in recent weeks due to a number of factors, including Friday’s significant miss on jobs creation for April, a robust earnings season, and reassuring remarks made by central bank governor Jerome Powell regarding the policy outlook.
Powell’s comments last Wednesday that he did not see borrowing costs rising again this year and that he still expected to cut at some point helped to set the positive tone.
That significantly reduced the market turbulence brought on by the yen’s huge swings at the beginning of last week, which apparently prompted two Japanese interventions.
“This week features a lot of Fed members giving speeches, but not a lot of noteworthy economic data. Any remarks they make regarding prospective rate decreases will be closely scrutinized by traders.”
“I am optimistic that today’s restrictive level of rates can take the edge off demand in order to bring inflation back to our target,” stated Thomas Barkin, the head of the Richmond Fed, earlier this week.According to prepared notes, he stated, “The full impact of higher rates is yet to come.” Bloomberg News reported this.
The Dow was up, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also saw gains of more than one percent on Wall Street.
Asia followed suit, but with some markets losing ground as the day went on.
After a lengthy weekend holiday, Tokyo resumed business as usual, with Shanghai, Sydney, Seoul, Taipei, and Bangkok following suit.
When London reopened after a holiday, it too climbed.
However, after ten straight victories, Hong Kong lost steam, while Jakarta, Singapore, Wellington, Manila, and Mumbai all had difficulties.