2023-05-19 19:13:25
Consolidation week for world stock markets, waiting for a definitive agreement to raise the debt ceiling in the US in the coming days. This possibility has been what has pushed investor purchases in recent days and , although in a very moderate way, the Ibex-35 added 0.2% in the week, after rising 0.4% on Friday to 9,254 points.
The biggest increases were for Grifols (+2.77%), Sacyr (+1.49%), Endesa (+1.40%), Mapfre (+1.38%), Logista (+1.37%) and Colonial (+1.10%). On the other hand, IAG lost 1.68%, followed by Naturgy (-1.48%), Meliá (-0.68%), Acerinox (-0.65%), Bankinter (-0.42%) and Banco Sabadell (-0.25%).
At the close of the European markets, the Republicans in the US surprised by pausing the negotiations, although it is expected that they will be resumed in the coming days with the hope of a final agreement that will prevent the country from defaulting.
But be careful, because this positive situation, added to the lower financial tensions, could return investors’ eyes to macroeconomic news, reactivating the fear of high interest rates for a longer time. And it is that voices are beginning to surface again indicating that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) will not lower interest rates before the end of the year.
What’s more, references such as employment, which is proving to be much more resistant than expected, have once again raised (from 5% to close to 30%) the probability that investors grant to a new rise in interest rates in June, despite the fact that the president of the Fed, Jerome Powell, anticipated a pause in the last meeting of the organism.
For this reason, his intervention at a conference in Washington this Friday was especially expected by the market. But nothing new regarding the ambiguous speech that he already made a few weeks ago: on the one hand, he assures that the current credit stress can help in the fight against inflation. In other words, the door is reopened to the long-awaited pause in the rate hike cycle.
Moreover, Powell said that “we can continue to allow ourselves the luxury of continuing to observe the economic data and act accordingly.” But, on the other hand, he also made it clear that the priority is to return inflation to the 2% target. And, for this, if rates have to be raised, they will continue to be raised.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has expressed itself these days along the same lines, explaining that interest rates will be raised to sufficiently restrictive levels and will remain there for as long as necessary to reduce inflation.
Meanwhile, in the raw materials market, the price of a barrel of Brent recovers more than 1% to 76.74 dollars, while the US West Texas is close to 73 dollars.
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