All episodes

The European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday lowered its deposit facility rate by 25bp for the second time this year. But ECB Chief Christine Lagarde kept a poker face for what’s next and said that there is no commitment to a particular rate path. And mixed updates to forecasts didn’t help much either. The European officials revised their growth projections lower for the next two years and kept their inflation forecasts unchanged, but they increased their core inflation forecast for this year and the next. It was like tightening the belt on one side but loosening it on the other.
The...

Today we'll talk about Polygon's switch from MATIC to POL as well as Bitcoin's and Ethereum's chart developments.

_____
Learn the fundamentals of trading at your own pace with Swissquote's Education Center. Discover our online courses, webinars and eBooks: https://swq.ch/wr
_____
Discover our brand and philosophy: https://swq.ch/wq
Learn more about our employees: https://swq.ch/d5
_____
Let's stay connected:
LinkedIn: https://swq.ch/cH

The latest US CPI data, and the reaction to data was mixed on Wednesday. The good news is that the headline inflation fell from 2.9% to 2.5% in August, and sank significantly below the 3% level where it was resisting since last summer. But core inflation – which excludes volatile food and energy prices – came in line with the expectations on a yearly basis, and slightly higher-than-expected on a monthly basis – and marked the end of the 25 or 50bp cut for next week’s FOMC meeting. It will likely be a 25bp cut, ladies and gents...
In Europe,...

The barrel of US crude tumbled almost 4% to nearly $65pb level, as Brent crude slipped below the $70pb mark after OPEC – which is normally optimistic - lowered its demand forecast for the second time in two months.
Elsewhere, the debate between Trump and Harris went quite well for Harris, which saw her victory odds climbed to 55, and the latter sent Bitcoin 2.50% lower. Banks sold off on gloomy outlook from big bank CEOs and Big Tech barely reacted to European fines to Apple and Google.
Today, all eyes are on the US CPI data. A sufficiently soft...

The European and US indices rebounded on Monday, though the rebound was probably not based on high conviction, but looked more like the correction of last week’s decent selloff.
In the US, the 2-year yield consolidated below the 3.70% level, but the US dollar index rebounded ahead of Wednesday’s CPI data – that will certainly not change the expectation of a 25bp cut from the Federal Reserve (Fed) at next week’s policy meeting, but that could – if significantly different than expectations – revive or temper the dovish Fed expectations for the rest of the year. The EURUSD extended losses...

Last week ended on an ugly note, really, as the jobs data from the US revealed throughout the week was weak, but maybe not weak enough to tilt the Federal Reserve (Fed) expectations toward a clear direction. US yields fell and the equities fell, the USDJPY fell to the lowest levels since August meltdown.
And if it’s not enough, the data released in the earliest hours of this week pointed that the Japanese economy recovered slower-than-expected but that the price pressures remained higher than expected in Q2, and that inflation in China came in below estimates as well, not helping...

Risk appetite got another hit yesterday after the US ADP report printed a weaker-than-expected number and revived the worries that the US official jobs data could also disappoint for the second month in a row.
Many investors believe that today’s job figures could be pivotal in determining whether the Fed will cut rates by 25 or 50 basis points at its meeting later this month. Why this data is so important? Above all, it is because the Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that a further weakness in the jobs market is undesired. That’s obviously a good reason for investors to...

US equities remained under pressure yesterday after the JOLTS report revealed that the US job openings unexpectedly fell further in July to the lowest level since 2021. The US yields, the dollar and most major equity indices fell. On the other hand, the USDJPY dropped to the lowest levels since the beginning of August as the Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor Ueda added more fuel to fire saying that the bank will continue to raise the borrowing costs if needed.
So you understood, we are living a situation of deja vu: rising dovish Federal Reserve (Fed) expectations combined with rising...

September began on an ugly note, to say the least. The bonds gained and US equities tumbled after the latest ISM data showed a fifth month of contraction in the US manufacturing, and at accelerated pace. The latter revived the recession worries ahead of this week’s critical US jobs data, and sent the S&P500 more than 2% down. This was the worst selloff since August 5, when a weak jobs data from the US had boosted the recession worries, the expectation of a 50bp cut from the Federal Reserve (Fed) and resulted in an almost 10% selloff of the S&P500....

The new week started with caution. The US and Canada were off, and news from Europe weren’t exceptional. The data released on Monday showed that the manufacturing PMI figures for August were slightly higher than expected, but numbers in major Eurozone countries remained below 50, in the contraction zone for another month. Volkswagen announced unprecedented factory closures in Germany. But the European indices gained, along with the euro. Mood is different this morning, with the US dollar broadly in demand against major peers.
All eyes are on the US jobs data this week. Investors around the world needs the Federal...