WASHINGTON, July 15 ― Global equity markets edged lower yesterday and oil slipped while the safe-haven dollar rose after the latest red-hot US inflation reading heightened investor fears about Federal Reserve interest rate hikes and a possible recession.
Wednesday's data showed US consumer prices jumped 9.1 per cent year-on-year in June, up from May's 8.6 per cent rise.
The data was seen as firming the case for the Federal Reserve to raise rates aggressively. Policymakers might consider a 100 basis point increase at the July meeting, Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic said.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 1.53 per cent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.82 per cent.
On Wall Street, stock indexes tumbled yesterday after weaker-than-expected earnings from big US banks JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley underscored growing fears of a sharp economic downturn.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.46 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 0.30 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.03 per cent.
Meanwhile, the dollar soared to a 20-year high, emerging as a preferred save haven amid growing economic risks of late, as gold slumped more than 2 per cent to a near one-year low yesterday. The dollar index rose 0.351 per cent, with the euro down 0.47 per cent to US$1.0013.
“The Fed probably needs to temper people’s expectations in terms of what they can do,” said Eddie Cheng, head of international multi-asset investment at Allspring Global Investments.
“In the past hiking cycle, we have observed that inflation kept rising during the hiking cycle. ... It takes time for the monetary policy to affect inflation.” Cheng said that riskier assets will be the “collateral damage” in the Fed's attempts to reign in inflation.
JPMorgan Chase, the United States' biggest bank, reported a fall in second-quarter profit. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon warned that geopolitical tension, high inflation, waning consumer confidence, the never-before-seen quantitative tightening and the war in Ukraine “are very likely to have negative consequences on the global economy sometime down the road.”
“There was an irrational response to the JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley results,” said Jay Hatfield, chief executive and portfolio manager at InfraCap in New York. “It wasn't a surprise that investment banking was weak.
“JPMorgan warned that there's uncertainty in the market, but if you're alive and breathing you know there’s uncertainty in the market.”
Slowdown worries were exacerbated as the Labour Department's Producer Price Index report echoed Wednesday's Consumer Price Index data, showing hotter-than-expected inflation in June.
The British pound was down 0.5 per cent at US$1.1832. In the first vote to choose who will succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative party leader, former finance minister Rishi Sunak won the biggest backing from Conservative lawmakers.
The euro was down 0.5 per cent at US$1.001, having slipped below parity on Wednesday for the first time since 2002.
The euro has been under pressure because of the European Central Bank lagging the Fed in ending its ultra-easy monetary policy of the past decade, as well as the economic risks from the euro zone's dependence on Russian gas.
The European Commission cut its forecasts for euro zone economic growth for this year and revised upward its estimates for inflation.
Italian yields rose sharply ahead of a parliamentary confidence vote which risks bringing down the country's government.
The yield on 10-year Treasury notes was up 5.5 basis points to 2.961 per cent. The 2-year, 10-year part of the Treasury yield curve is the most inverted it has been at any point in this cycle, according to Deutsche Bank.
Yield curve inversion ― which is when short-dated interest rates are higher than longer-dated ones ― is commonly seen as an indicator that markets are anticipating a recession.
The two-year US Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, was down 1 basis point at 3.134 per cent.
Oil prices fell as traders saw a large US rate hike possibly reducing crude demand. US crude fell 0.07 per cent to US$96.23 per barrel and Brent was at US$99.63, up 0.06 per cent on the day.
Overnight, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Philippines central bank surprised markets by tightening monetary policy in off cycle moves. ― Reuters
