Surge in oil prices casts shadow over prospects for rate cuts | MarketTalk: What’s up today? | Swissquote

Show notes

US crude jumped past the $79b level this morning on escalating tensions in the Red Sea. The European and American futures are slightly in the negative at the time of writing, and stocks in Hong Kong and China were better bid on Monday as China imposed ban on short sellers, but the gains remained short-lived after a HK court ordered Evergrande’s liquidation. Globally, we see a limited risk appetite at the start of a week packed with economic data, central bank decisions and corporate earnings.
The Fed will keep rates unchanged this week, and Powell will likely say the same thing than Lagarde last week: that inflation looks on path toward 2% goal, that soft landing is no longer a daydream and that the Fed will relax rates, but the timing will be data dependent. The Bank of England (BoE) decision, euro area growth and inflation numbers, Australian inflation update, Canadian GDP and the US jobs numbers will be closely watched.
On the corporate calendar, Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, AMD, and US big oil companies are among the names that are due to announce their latest earnings this week. A major part of the investor focus will be on Microsoft and its AI announcements. Any positive surprise should keep investors on their cloud. But note that, overall, 25% of the companies in the S&P500 have reported results for Q4. Of these companies, 69% have reported actual EPS above estimates, yes but that’s below the 5-year average of 77%, according to FactSet.
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