Saturday 8 February 2020

Markets fall, strong US jobs report lowers Fed rate cut hopes

Markets mostly closed lower on Friday.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5 percent, the STOXX Europe 600 fell 0.3 percent and the Nikkei 225 fell 0.2 percent.

However, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.3 percent even as the number of deaths from China's coronavirus epidemic hit 722 on Saturday. The number of confirmed infections in China now exceeds 34,500.

In contrast, US stocks fell despite a better-than-expected jobs report for January, with 225,000 new jobs being added.

Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said that the market may have been rallying in response to central bank easing elsewhere in reaction to the coronavirus and may “see a stronger-than-expected jobs report as reason to believe the Fed won’t cut rates, putting pressure on the market”.

Similarly, Alec Young, managing director of global markets research at FTSE Russell, said that “stocks are overbought after a huge rally, some of which has been predicated on hopes for a June Fed rate cut, which now seems highly unlikely”.

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