Wednesday 13 June 2018

Markets mixed, bull party “still going”

Markets were mixed on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent and the Nikkei 225 rose 0.3 percent but the STOXX Europe 600 slipped 0.1 percent.

Investors were mostly unmoved by the signing of an agreement between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula after their talks in Singapore.

Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, noted that “the agreement still lacks some detail and given the unpredictable and volatile nature of the two leaders, there’s no guarantee that it won’t run into significant difficulties”.

Investors' attention is likely to be focused on central banks for the rest of the week. The Federal Reserve meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, with markets expecting an interest-rate hike as an outcome. On Thursday, the European Central Bank is expected to announce the timing for unwinding its bond buying. The Bank of Japan will release a policy update on Friday.

Meanwhile, investors appear to be showing renewed love for US stocks. A Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey for June showed that investors are overweight US stocks for the first time in 15 months.

Maneesh Deshpande, Barclays' new US stock strategist, appears to endorse the bullish view of US stocks.

“It's late, but the party's still going,” he said in a note.

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