Market Wrap – Stocks finish on top again

The major European indices are closing the with gains led by the Spanish Ibex which rose by 1.42%. Comments from ECB President Lagarde at Davos have been key for sentiment.

Break down the European closes, the German DAX is up 0.76%, France’s CAC, +0.63%, UK’s FTSE 100 +0.3%, Spain’s Ibex +1.42% and Italy’s FTSE MIB at +0.62%.

On a weekly basis it’s not such a pretty picture, with German DAX -0.35% and France’s CAC -0.39%. The FTSE 100 failed to build on recent traction and closed the week at-0.94%

Elsewhere, Spain’s Ibex did close with a gain of 0.41% and Italy’s FTSE MIB -0.4%. Next week will be key as we get to see a raft on PMI data from the Eurozone for the first time this year.

In the USA markets are mixed, although the rollercoaster in tech stocks continue with Tesla up today big, while Amazon and Apple are also posting solid gains.

Another big mover is the yen. The USDJPY pair has been strongly influenced by Governor Kuroda, who has said that his only regret perhaps is that inflation did not hit 2% in a sustainable manner during his tenure .

The market taking this as not enough to warrant a change in policy stance. Which essentially cements the likelihood that we should not expect any major policy change by the BOJ in March and perhaps also in the April policy meeting. Just be aware that Kuroda’s term will end on 8 April this year.

Also this afternoon we had more bad housing data from the US. Existing home sales 4.02M vs 3.96M estimate, the Prior month 4.08M vs 4.09M previously reported.

Sales were down -1.5% month on month, marking the 11th straight month decline. It seems that slump in housing will continue while rates are high. That has people “house locked’ if they don’t have to sell. The higher rates, make affordability more difficult which limits buyers. Buyers can be picky. Sellers wait even with supply low.

Existing home sales are moving close to the pandemic low. With most people in a fix rate loan at much lower levels. The current 30-year mortgages are above 6% more than double what they were a year ago.