Markets rise amid “bad omen”

Markets rose on Monday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent, the STOXX Europe 600 rose 0.1 percent and the Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 percent.

Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank, noted that “trade war fears are not as intense as they were last week”.

However, Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist of US equity strategy at CFRA, warned: “There’s no clear-cut signal for when we actually enter a trade war, and markets could still be disappointed about what could happen.”

In the meantime, investors may have other things to be concerned about.

A report late on Monday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had raided the office of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, caused US stocks to give up earlier gains towards the end of the session.

And last week Friday, JPMorgan Chase & Co noted that the one-month US overnight indexed swap rate has slightly inverted, indicating that investors are either pricing in a mistake from central bankers or end-of-cycle dynamics.

The bank also noted that this “is a significant market development, not least because it occurs rather rarely” and that it is “generally perceived as a bad omen for risky markets”.