Fundamental Analysis

Since the start of the banking crisis just a week ago, markets have been recalibrating their expectations for central banks. It's broadly understood that the main driver of weakness in the banking sector at the moment is higher interest…
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Up until last Friday, both the ECB and the Fed were expected to hike by 50bps. In the case of the ECB, President Lagarde has all but confirmed that a half-point was planned. Where there were doubts was around potential tweaks to the QT…
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Just last Friday there was a pretty strong consensus building that the Fed could hike rates by 50bps, and the terminal rate would end up over 5.5%. That has all changed, to the point that there is increasing doubts about whether the Fed…
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It seems that the major crisis from SVB has been averted for now, but there are so many lingering questions that it will likely be an issue for the markets for a while. And then there is the potential that SVB exposed underlying issues in…
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US stock indices dropped substantially yesterday, led by the Nasdaq and prompting a general sell-off across the world. A ~2% drop in the stock market isn't all that unusual, but this time it was caused by a massive drop in the banking…
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Following Fed Chair Powell's comments on Capitol Hill last Tuesday, there is a lot of expectation around the upcoming NFP figures. Powell essentially said that if economic data came in well above expectations, then there would be a 50bps…
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The two remaining major central bank meetings for this week are expected to conclude with no change in monetary policy. But there are particulars from each that could make each event noteworthy. The global cycle of rate hikes will…
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There was quite a bit of fanfare around the signing of what is now called the "Windsor Protocol". The agreement between the EU and the UK was supposed to put an end to the Northern Ireland Protocol that had dogged the Brexit procedure for…
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Sunday marks the start of the annual, week-long National People's Congress (NPC) in China. That's when all the country's leaders get together to lay out key national policies for the rest of the year and beyond. This will be the first time…
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The strong PMI data from China on Wednesday gave markets a substantial push as investors took on more risk. But there were two key data points that changed the narrative outside of China. The first was the release of German CPI, which came…
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