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This week in the markets, run up to last May bank holiday

Market Activity

This week in the markets, run up to last May bank holiday

Debt ceiling dominates market chatter.

May 22, 2023

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The Week Ahead (22nd May 2023):


The FTSE 100 and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index are little changed on the open in London this morning.



Ryanair Holdings Plc gained after predicting strong demand in the peak summer season will drive a 10% increase in passenger numbers and “modest year-on-year” profit growth in the coming year.

NatWest Group Plc rose slightly after agreeing to buy back £1.26 billion of its shares from the UK government.

The move has reduced the size of the government’s holdings from 41.4% to 38.6%.

The disposal, which was completed through an off-market purchase by NatWest, is part of an ongoing plan to wind down the Treasury shareholding taken during the financial crisis. It took place at Friday’s NatWest closing price of 268.4p. The bank intends to cancel about three-quarters of the shares and will keep the rest in treasury, giving it the flexibility to cancel or reissue them at a later date.




While last week ended with concerns that debt ceiling negotiations had broken down, today has seen hopes of further progress.

Debt-limit negotiators resumed discussions in Washington ahead of a meeting on later today between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, as time grows short to avert a US default and investors are girding for more volatility in markets.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said earlier Sunday that the chances the US can pay all its bills by mid-June are “quite low”, while Goldman Sachs economists estimated that the Treasury Department will by June 8 or 9 see its cash levels drop below the $30 billion it’s signalled as a bare minimum for meeting federal obligations falling due.


While the ASX 200 struggled overnight, the Nikkei made further progress and the Hang Seng rallied off its lows of the session.


Leader Board - Top Trading Strategy 22nd May


On Friday Fed chairman Jerome Powell said that his preference for the June meeting was a pause in policy tightening rather than another hike, helping to reverse a rising expectation that the Fed would have to move again on rates.

With the debt ceiling scheduled to hit before then, June's meeting will be an interesting one.


The notable reports in a run of American and British data this week are revised US first-quarter gross domestic product figures, the May minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee rate-setting meeting and UK inflation figures.

The Bank of England is expecting the annual rate of consumer price inflation to drop almost 2 percentage points from 10.1 per cent in March to 8.4 per cent in April, above the consensus, which is closer to 8 per cent.

Whilst inflation for the Eurozone remains uncomfortably hot and ECB members make hawkish noises, weak economic sentiment reads from Germany should not be ignored. We have seen the German (and Eurozone) ZEW 1-year expectations index roll over for the past three months, and there is a reasonable chance we will see this occur on the Ifo report too. And that eases pressure for the ECB to hike and can weigh on the euro, especially if Fed members continue to make hawkish noises as they have over the past couple of weeks.

For international economic comparison, there is the latest download of purchasing managers’ index data for manufacturing and services across the G7 nations.

Central banks in Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey are expected to leave their interest rates unchanged.





AI mania has sent the share price of Nvidia through the roof, more than doubling this year. Its graphics processing units are the main workhorses for training large language models — and with perfect timing, the company started shipping its new H100 chips this year, the first GPUs specifically designed to handle transformers, the crucial technology behind AI large language models.

There’ll therefore be much interest at Wednesday’s earnings call in how fast the company has been able to scale up production of the H100 to meet the latent demand.

The restaurant industry by way of contrast is having a rotten time. On Monday Prezzo holds a company voluntary arrangement meeting, aiming to close stores and cut staff to recover the core business. If approved by at least 75 per cent of the company’s creditors, 46 of Prezzo’s 143 UK sites will close.


Here are the important things to watch this week:


Monday

  • EU, May FCCI flash consumer confidence indicator
  • Japan, core machine orders
  • Prezzo company voluntary arrangement meeting
  • UK, Rightmove House Price Index
  • Results: Big Yellow FY, Ryanair FY, Wincanton FY, Zoom Communications Q1


Tuesday

  • EU, France, Germany, Japan, UK, US purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data
  • UK, public sector net borrowing data
  • UK, Kantar’s monthly supermarket sales, market share and inflation data
  • US, April new residential sales figures
  • Results: Agilent Technologies Q2, AutoZone Q3, Cranswick FY, Intuit Q3, SSP Group H1, Statkraft Q1, Topps Tiles H1, Victorian Plumbing H1


Wednesday

  • European Central Bank (ECB) Financial Stability Review
  • Germany, Ifo Business Climate Index
  • UK, April consumer price index (CPI), retail price index (RPI) and producer price index (PPI) inflation rate figures
  • US, Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes
  • Results: Abercrombie & Fitch Q1, Analog Devices Q2, Aviva Q1 trading update, Close Brothers Q3 trading update, Kingfisher Q1 trading update, Marks and Spencer FY, Nvidia Q1, Severn Trent FY, SSE FY


Thursday

  • France, business confidence figures
  • Germany, final Q1 GDP figures
  • US, revised Q1 GDP and consumer spending figures
  • Results: Autodesk Q1, Best Buy Q1, Costco Wholesale Q3, Dollar Tree Q1, Gap Q1, Generali Q1, Hill & Smith trading update and AGM, Johnson Matthey FY, Medtronic Q4, Pets at Home FY, Qinetiq FY, Ralph Lauren Q4, Tate & Lyle FY, United Utilities FY, Workspace Group FY


Friday

  • France, consumer confidence figures
  • UK, April retail sales figures
  • US, University of Michigan sentiment



The Markets This Week:


Expect the debt ceiling to dominate market news this week. The ‘will they, won’t they’ saga still has some legs.


Good news regarding the debt ceiling talks, could see the markets move up.


Bad news probably doesn’t bare thinking about for stock bulls.


Our traders right now are positioned for a SELL OFF in US equities. Perhaps they think the markets have already factored in the ‘good news’ of an agreement being found.


Although as the week evolves, biases can obviously change.


It’s been a great start to 2023 for most of the strategies showcased on TPP. Whether it’s been by correctly calling a sell off, or riding the markets back up- the TPP strategies have coped well.


Here’s hoping for more of the same this week.



If you have an underperforming portfolio, if you’re frustrated with your wealth manager blindly linking you to the markets, and charging you for doing so, or whether you’re residing in cash and waiting for a market opportunity- contact our team for a FREE consultation.


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Here is to a great week for your portfolio this week. 😀

Please don't hesitate to get in touch with any questions or queries in regards to your TPP portfolio.

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