The US stock market ended Tuesday’s trading without a single trend. At the close of the stock exchange, the Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased by 0.15%, the S&P 500 decreased by 0.08%, while the Nasdaq added 0.22%. The US Federal Reserve is expected to meet today. Amid the sell-off in global stock markets on Friday and Monday, the dollar index and Japanese yen have become safe haven assets for investors. Economists believe that Jerome Powell will give a hint about the QE program cuts today, with an official announcement to be made in November. But many analysts believe the Fed will have a problem convincing investors that the plans to cut asset purchases are not an obstacle to raising interest rates.
President Biden plans to announce the purchase of 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The FDA is expected to announce its decision on the Pfizer booster today.
Western European stock indexes rebounded on Tuesday after the strongest fall the day before. The British FTSE 100 increased by 1.1%, German DAX increased by 1.4%, French CAC 40 jumped by 1.5%, Spanish IBEX 35 and Italian FTSE MIB added 1.2% each. Germany’s house price index fell slightly in August despite the ECB flooding the economy with cheap money. But the situation is likely to start to change soon. The ECB will also start to reduce its asset purchase program to prevent the acceleration of inflation, which promises to be even higher amid Europe’s energy problems. The unemployment rate in Sweden increased to 8.5% (previously 8.0%).
The United Arab Emirates oil minister said that OPEC+ would not need to change its current production agreement. The group of 23 countries has agreed to increase production by 400,000 barrels a day each month following the global economic recovery. Also, OPEC+ is not concerned about a surplus in the second quarter of 2022.
Aluminum prices jumped to a 13-year high amid China’s production cuts.
The People’s Bank of China left the key loan prime rate unchanged. It also became known that the People’s Bank of China had injected 120 billion yuan ($18.6 billion) into the banking system through repurchase agreements, which would result in a net impact of 90 billion yuan. Evergrande will pay interest on the bonds on Thursday. Amid this news, China’s CSI 300 blue-chip index cut its initial losses slightly. Analysts at Bank of America cut China’s GDP growth forecast for the next 3 years.
The Bank of Japan kept its negative interest rates and asset purchase targets unchanged amid pressure on the economy related to Covid and the upcoming prime minister elections. The central bank has also released more details about its green lending program and will begin issuing loans in December. On the back of this news, Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index has decreased by 0.5% since the trading day’s opening.
Main market quotes:
- S&P 500 (F) 4,354.19 −3.54 (−0.081%)
- Dow Jones 33,919.84 −50.63 (−0.15%)
- DAX 15,348.53 +216.47 (+1.43%)
- FTSE 100 6,980.98 +77.07 (+1.12%)
- USD Index 93.22 −0.05 (−0.06%)
Important events for today:
- China Loan Prime Rate at 04:30 (GMT+3);
- BOJ Monetary Policy Statement at 05:00 (GMT+3);
- BOJ Press Conference at 06:00 (GMT+3);
- BoJ Interest Rate Decision at 06:04 (GMT+3);
- US Existing Homes Sales (m/m) at 17:00 (GMT+3);
- US Crude Oil Inventories (w/w) at 17:30 (GMT+3);
- US FOMC Economic Projections at 21:00 (GMT+3);
- US FOMC Meeting Minutes at 21:00 (GMT+3);
- US Fed Interest Rate Decision at 21:00 (GMT+3);
- US FOMC Press Conference at 21:30 (GMT+3).
