Treasury

U.S. stocks closed lower on Wednesday as crude prices tumbled and investors weighed cautious U.S. Federal Reserve commentary and ongoing geopolitical strife against mixed quarterly earnings. Benchmark U.S. Treasury yields and the dollar eased back from multi-month highs, while gold backed down from its all-time high.   All three major U.S. stock indexes ended the session in the red, with the tech shares dragging the Nasdaq down 1.15%. “April has been a little disappointing for investors, but remember stocks have gained the past five months, some kind of pause or break would be perfectly normal, and we very well could be seeing that right now,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group in Omaha, Nebraska. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell declined to provide guidance on Tuesday regarding the timing and extent of expected interest rate cuts, but said policy needs to be restrictive for longer, dimming hopes for rate cuts this year. “The realization that Powell is pushing back on when the interest rate cuts might start has added to the overall confusion, solidifying the assumption that…

By Stella Qiu SYDNEY (Reuters) –Asian shares steadied from a recent sell-off on Wednesday although investors remain wary after the world’s most powerful central banker had a change of heart on U.S. rate cuts this year, pushing Treasury yields to new five-month highs. Europe is set for a subdued open, with EUROSTOXX 50 futures flat on the day. U.S. stock futures slipped 0.1% after Wall Street finished the day lower. The dollar’s surprising resilience this year is causing discomfort in Asia’s currency markets. The beleaguered yen is plumbing fresh 34-year lows on an almost daily basis, the Chinese yuan is pinned near five-month troughs and Vietnam’s dong is at record lows. The New Zealand dollar gained 0.4% to $0.5902 after first-quarter inflation data showed domestically driven price pressures were surprisingly strong, adding to signs that the last mile to get inflation back to target could be bumpy. On Wednesday, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1%, after plunging more than 4% in the past three sessions. Japan’s Nikkei, however, dropped 0.8% to the lowest in two months….

JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists say don’t expect an upbeat corporate earnings season to drive stocks higher because much of the optimism has already been priced in after this year’s record gains. A research team led by Mislav Matejka wrote in a report that profit expectations for the first quarter have been lowered during the reporting period, which lowers the threshold for U.S. companies to exceed expectations. Strategists said that after excluding technology giants, S&P 500 companies’ profits are expected to decline across the board. At the same time, investor positions look “very stretched,” Matejka said, with major stock indexes hitting record highs on optimism about economic growth and interest rate cuts. He said: “The stock market has performed well post-earnings, suggesting investors are more optimistic than the pessimistic earnings forecasts conveyed by sell-side analysts. We need to see significant earnings acceleration to justify current stock valuations “It’s reasonable and we’re concerned that this may not happen.” Matejka said that so far, half of U.S. companies have performed below market expectations on the day of earnings reports. Despite a 10%…

U.S. retail sales in March rose higher than economists expected, further weakening investor confidence in the Federal Reserve starting to cut interest rates this year. Most U.S. Treasury bond yields climbed to new highs since the beginning of the year, with the 2-year Treasury bond yield approaching 5%. The 10-year Treasury yield rose 10 basis points to 4.62%, the highest level since November 14 last year. Expectations for monetary policy have shifted toward the Federal Reserve starting to cut interest rates later, with officials saying rate cuts would require a higher degree of confidence that inflation is continuing to rise toward its 2% target. Traders no longer fully expect a rate cut before November, whereas at the start of the year markets were fully pricing in rate cuts starting in March.

The convergence of interest rate cut expectations is rewriting the narrative of global capital markets. Recently, due to the impact of U.S. economic fundamentals such as inflation and employment that exceeded expectations, market expectations for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates within the year have declined. The “anchor of global asset pricing” has made waves again. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield recently broke through the 4.5% mark and remains above this point. Some market participants are worried that the “nightmare” of 10-year U.S. bond yields pointing to 5% may strike again. Analysts believe that the current asset prices are more reflected in the correction of front-running transactions in anticipation of interest rate cuts. Looking ahead, interest rate cut expectations may continue to swing driven by data and geopolitics, affecting the trend of U.S. bond yields. Multi-maturity U.S. Treasury yields rise The rapid rise in U.S. bond yields has once again attracted market attention. On April 10, local time, as the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) in March exceeded expectations across the board, the market was worried about the prospect…

Recently, the sharp rise in international gold prices has attracted the attention of investors from almost all over the world. Behind the frenzied buying in the gold market, another safe-haven asset, U.S. Treasury bonds, presents a completely different scene of depression. A series of weak performance at U.S. Treasury auctions has stoked investor concerns that the market will struggle to absorb the massive issuance of Treasury debt. In the past week, after weak demand for the US$39 billion 10-year Treasury bond auction, the bond market sell-off triggered by higher-than-expected U.S. CPI in March intensified. Investors also showed little interest in the three-year and 30-year U.S. Treasury auctions. Behind the growing caution among bond market investors is the growing belief that U.S. inflation is not yet fully under control and that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates at multi-decade highs in the coming months or even years. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, known as the “anchor of global asset pricing” and the benchmark for pricing borrowing rates from mortgages to corporate loans, closed at around 4.5% last…

Driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) craze, technology stocks seem to have attracted all the attention of U.S. stock investors, but some analysts believe that investors should focus on a less dazzling industry. Driven by various bullish factors, The industry is ripe for strong gains. Energy stocks deserve more attention as the sector starts the year off with an impressive performance, according to top U.S. economist David Rosenberg, president of Rosenberg Research profound. The S&P 500 Energy index has returned 16.3% so far this year, and investors haven’t noticed yet. “This is an overlooked segment of the market because investors have very negative positions (in the sector) (SPDR Energy ETF outflows of $2.7 billion over the past year),” he said. Overall, there are three main reasons why energy stocks are expected to rise further this year, with some analysts predicting the sector will rise as much as 20% from current levels. Strong fundamentals Even as technology stocks move higher on strong earnings, LPL Financial noted in a report that the energy sector posted more March earnings revisions than all S&P…

“The U.S. dollar is our currency, but it’s your trouble” – As the U.S. dollar has been rising against the backdrop of recent declines in expectations of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut, this famous quote from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Connally more than half a century ago seems to be coming back again. It has become a major problem for many policymakers in emerging markets… Many investors in the foreign exchange market have recently been paying attention to whether the Japanese government will intervene to prevent the yen, which has already fallen below the 153 mark, from weakening further. But in fact, in emerging markets, many economies face exchange rate pressures no less than Japan. Some locals said the foreign exchange market has become a key battleground, as the dollar’s recent surge has put tremendous pressure on an increasing number of emerging economies to intervene. Market data shows that as investors continue to buy gold and the US dollar, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index weakened for the third consecutive day on Friday, approaching the low of the year. Almost…

As the first-quarter earnings season of the U.S. stock market slowly opened last week, JPMorgan Chase , which has always been bearish on the prospects of U.S. stocksAnother pessimistic warning. JP Morgan strategists are not optimistic about the outlook for corporate earnings this earnings season, believing that except for a few technology giants, most U.S. stock companies will see an overall decline in earnings. They also believe that even if U.S. stock companies perform well in earnings, it will be difficult to push U.S. stocks higher because most of the optimism has been digested in advance. Xiaomo Mo’s pessimistic outlook on Q1 earnings season The team of Mislav Matejka, head of global equity strategists at JPMorgan Chase, wrote in a report that they have lowered their profit expectations for the first quarter of U.S. stock companies. Strategists said first-quarter earnings for most companies in the S&P 500 are expected to decline across the board after excluding several technology giants. Matejka also noted that investor positioning looks “very tight” as the S&P 500 index has risen to a record high. He…