The markets continued to largely snooze their way through the start of the week, even if the US indices did manage some more fresh highs.
The Dow Jones crossed the 22900 mark this afternoon thanks to a 40 point rise – by the end of the week it’s pretty damn likely it’ll hit 23000, completing a near 5000(!!!) point increase since the start of the year. Helping the index along its way was the best Empire State manufacturing index reading for more than 3 years, the figure coming in at 30.2 against the 20.3 forecast. This news also gave a boost to the dollar, which forced the pound down by 0.1% while maintaining a 0.2% rise against the euro.
Elsewhere the FTSE remained the wrong side of 7550 despite both sterling’s dissipating gains and Brent Crude’s $58 per barrel-teasing performance, with the index in part weighed down by ConvaTec's (LON:CTEC) nose-bleed inducing 21% plunge. The DAX kept above 13000 with a 10 point rise, while the Spanish IBEX fell 1% as investors nervously awaited Catalonia’s response to Madrid’s demand for clarity.
So, today’s been a bit of a bust. The rest of the week is chock full of data-goodies, however, especially for sterling. Tomorrow sees September’s inflation reading, which is forecast to finally hit 3%; wage growth is then set to remain unchanged at 2.1% on Wednesday, while Thursday will likely bring with it a sharp drop in retail sales, from 1.0% to -0.1% month-on-month. It’ll be interesting to see whether those latter figures outweigh the potentially rate hike-inducing inflation increase in the eyes of the pound.
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