A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Kevin Buckland
What a difference a payrolls report makes.
From worries about a U.S. economic “hard landing”, the debate has shifted to the potential for a so-called “no landing”, where the labour market continues to burn hot even as inflation cools.
The story is so compelling that it completely absorbed the attention of traders and investors, even as Israeli bombs fell in Gaza and Lebanon, with Monday marking one year since the Hammas attack that triggered war.
Asian stocks picked up where Wall Street had left off, and Japan’s Nikkei led the charge with a 2% surge, getting extra help from a sharply weaker yen.
The U.S. exceptionalism narrative, which had been on shaky footing last month, is standing tall – and king dollar is straddling its shoulders.
The yen, euro and sterling all fell, although the return of Japanese finance ministry jawboning helped to put a floor under the yen. Traders’ scars from Japan’s last round of currency intervention may have started to twinge when top currency diplomat Atsushi Mimura said he was watching speculative moves “with a sense of urgency”.
Sterling, of course, has been caught in the crosscurrents of a shock dovish shift by Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey last week, which were then countered by BoE chief economist Huw Pill less than 24 hours later.
The euro, though, continues to suffer that sinking feeling, as more ECB officials join their president, Christine Lagarde, in signalling a brisk pace of further easing. ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau was the latest, saying the central bank will “quite probably” cut this month amid the risk of an inflation undershoot.
There will be no shortage of additional central bank speakers on Monday.
ECB chief economist Philip Lane and board member Piero Cipollone both give speeches in Frankfurt, and peer Jose Luis Escriva speaks in Madrid.
There is also a Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg, with Lagarde in attendance.
Out of the United States, we’ll hear Fedspeak from Governor Michelle Bowman and no fewer than three regional heads: Minneapolis’ Neel Kashkari, Atlanta’s Raphael Bostic and St. Louis’ Alberto Musalem.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee already had his say on the jobs data on Friday. In back-to-back interviews on Bloomberg and Yahoo! Finance, he called the figures “superb”, giving the Fed “both time and runway to figure out where the settling point is”. He added, though, that rates still need to come down “a lot” from here.
Additional developments that could influence markets on Monday:
-German industrial orders, manufacturing output, consumer goods (all Aug)
-UK Halifax house prices (Sep)
-Italy retail sales, trade balance (both Aug)
-Euro area sentix index (Oct), retail sales (Aug)
(By Kevin Buckland; Editing by Edmund Klamann)