Wall Street focus on Fed meeting later this week
U.S. markets ended last week in red, tech giants showed worst performance. During Friday’s trade, Dow Jones fell 0.9% to 33,476.5, the S&P 500 lost 0.7% to 3,934.4, while the NASDAQ dropped 0.7% to 11,004.6.
On the bond markets, UST 10Y rates were at 3.584%. Treasury yields, meanwhile, continued their ascent, but that had little impact on the growth sectors including tech as investors look ahead to data due Friday expected to show that producer prices are slowing.
The main attention of investors will be focused to the upcoming statistics this week. The FOMC meeting on Wednesday, as well as the meetings of the Bank of England and the ECB on Thursday, are expected to shed light on the future monetary policy of major central banks. The FED is expected will hike rate by 50 bp but keep the tough rhetoric going into the next year.
G7 will hold a virtual meeting on Monday to discuss Ukraine’s immediate needs following Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure. European Union foreign ministers are also meeting in Brussels to discuss how to support Ukraine through the winter. President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Yellen on Sunday affirmed US support for Ukraine. The US has promised $38 billion in military support and delivered $13 billion in direct aid to Ukraine already. In the meantime, Ukrainian forces struck the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol in the south over the weekend, killing over 200 Russian soldiers, while Russian forces carried out strikes against Ukrainian civilians in Donetsk on Sunday with two Russian missiles strikes hitting infrastructure in Donetsk region. Russia has also carried 11 strikes on Ukrainian forces along the front line in the east. Russian stock market was steady with stocks mixed on Monday as the price of oil rose slightly, but European natural gas fell, while investors kept weighing the economic impact of tightening international sanctions and the war in Ukraine. Both IMOEX and RTSI are currently lower with IMOEX down 0.62% to 2,164 and RTSI down 1.15% to 1,086. Food retailer Magnit was among the best performers on Monday. Novolipetsk Steel also gained after the board recommended an interim dividend of RUB 2.6/share. Gas companies Gazprom and Novatek retreated. Russian rouble continued decline both against US Dollar and EUR. Both USDRUB and EURRUB were higher today with USDRUB up 0.44% at 62.87 and EURRUB up 0;85% at 66.40. Limited demand for foreign currency in Russia kept holding back Dollar and Euro for further appreciation. Russian bond yields were slightly lower this morning with 10-year benchmark rouble bond yields lower at 2.5 bps at 10.125%. Euroclear has closed the settlement flags for some Russian securities including sovereign rouble denominated OFZ, as a result of the application of the forced transfer procedure.
Bunds trading steady on Monday following an 11bps selloff on Friday. The reversal filtering through to stocks with the Stoxx 600 down 0.71% at 0900 GMT having firmed 0.84% on Friday. Light on the data front today with German CPI due tomorrow kicking off a raft of CPI figures in the lead up to Thursday’s ECB monetary policy meeting.
A flat to weak open for SSA following Friday’s late selloff in rates. NGERIA (+.25) managed to hold up while most other names closed flat. GHANA (+.125) held up as well amid expectations of a staff-level agreement with the IMF team in the country. Reports surfaced over the weekend that the SLA would be made on Tuesday – the last day of the IMF team’s stay; bonds opening weak however
The NTB secondary market closed on a flat note as average yields dropped by 290bps across the curve. Average yields across the short, medium & long tier remained unchanged. There was no activity in the market. In the OMO secondary market, average yields closed flat across the curve.
The FGN bonds secondary market was quiet with average yields across the curve, closed flat. Average yields on the short dropped by 14bps while long end of the curve rose by 3bps respectively. The medium tenor of the curve remained unchanged. The Mar 2024 bond was the best performer while the Apr 2037 bond was the worst performer.
Public debt increased to N44.06 trillion- increase is due to new borrowings by the FG to part-finance budget deficit.