The market day in 4 points. News not to be missed today
The financial day continues to be characterized by some key and recurring themes: expectations on the Fed rate cut, China's economic growth, raw material prices highly dependent on the high-tension geopolitical context.
With the dragon markets closed, investors' attention was focused mainly on Japan, with the Nikkei closing up 0.86%.
The yen slipped against everything but the dollar and supported Japanese stocks.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow slipped 0.1% to snap a three-day losing streak.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose just 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively.
Investor fears that the Federal Reserve could keep rates higher for longer weighed on stocks.
In this context, today 4 themes guide global stock markets.
1.
What did Powell say? Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that it will take some time for policymakers to assess the current state of inflation, keeping the timing of potential interest rate cuts uncertain.
Speaking specifically about stronger-than-expected price pressures to start the year, the central bank leader said there was no rush to ease monetary policy.
“On inflation, it's too early to say whether the recent data represents anything more than a simple increase,” Powell said in a speech ahead of a question-and-answer session at Stanford University.
“We do not expect it will be appropriate to lower our policy rate until we have greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably towards 2%,” he added.
“Given the strength of the economy and the progress made so far on inflation, we have time to let incoming data guide our policy decisions.” read also Inflation surprises in the Eurozone, why and what happens now? Federal funds futures have already reduced the chance of a move in June to 62% from 74% a month ago.
However, the most significant change is how quickly and how much rates are expected to fall, with around 73 basis points discounted this year from more than 140 basis points in January.
Investors have also priced in 100 basis points of easing starting in 2025, so that rates are now seen at the end of next year around 4% rather than 3%.
2.
Commodities on the run Gold continues to shine, largely thanks to the certainty that rates will be cut this year.
The precious metal reached a new record, above $2,300 an ounce.
And it's not just gold.
Copper rose to 14-month highs.
Oil prices also jumped, as Ukraine's attacks on Russian refineries cut fuel supplies and concerns that the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza could spread to include Iran, possibly cutting off supplies from the Middle East, further fueled the race.
A meeting on Wednesday of top ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, including Russia, kept oil supply policy unchanged and prompted some countries to tighten production cuts.
read also New push to oil prices from OPEC, what has it decided? 3.
Chip alarm in Taiwan Taiwan begins to recover from the worst earthquake in 25 years.
The island's semiconductor industry has resumed operations.
Nine people were killed and more than 100 remain trapped.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the major maker of advanced chips for Apple and Nvidia, said it will resume production less than 24 hours after evacuating staff and halting operations.
The company said there was no damage to its most critical chip-making equipment.
4.
Apple towards robots? Personal robots! This could be Apple's answer to the burning question of where it can find new sources of revenue.
According to rumors reported by the foreign press, the company has teams investigating a possible push in the sector.
Apple is under growing pressure after abandoning its electric vehicle project in February.
With robotics, it could take hold in consumer homes and take advantage of advances in artificial intelligence.
Apple's hardware engineering division and its artificial intelligence and machine learning group would then be overseeing work on personal robotics, Bloomberg reported.
According to the report, the home robot project is still in the early stage of research and development.