Global Stock Markets-Weekly Updates (17- 21 July 2023)
The global markets closed mixed during the week. The world stock markets mainly focus on quarterly earnings and economic data. Asian markets mostly ended lower due to weak economic data and lower stimulus measures from Beijing.
The US Stock Markets – Weekly Updates
The US stock market indexes ended mixed this week. Dow Jones and S&P 500 ended higher while Nasdaq closed slightly lower during the week. The disappointing quarterly earnings by the Nasdaq stocks Tesla and Netflix erased all early gains of the index and dragged below the flatline. Meanwhile, Dow Jones registered the longest 10-day winning streak on the last day of the week.
Other than some upbeat quarterly results, Dow Jones gained on the hopes that the tight labor market and declining trend in inflation would help the economy to avoid recession. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in an interview said she does not expect a recession in the U.S. due to the labor market’s resilience and declining trends of inflation.
However, June’s retail sales data came slightly below expectations. The weekly initial jobless claims fell for the second consecutive week and by more than economists’ expectations. The U.S. two-year U.S. Treasury note yields increased during the week. However, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was little changed
European Stock Market Indexes- Weekly Updates
European stock market indexes closed higher for the second consecutive week, on hopes that evidence of slowing inflation could end monetary policy tightening in the region.
The latest data showed that UK’s annual consumer price growth slowed in June from the previous month due to a decline in gasoline prices. The fall in inflation rate exceeded a consensus expectation and matched the Bank of England’s forecast.
The market sentiments were upbeat as the eurozone avoided a recession in the first quarter of 2023, as revised figures showed that it remain flat instead of contracting as earlier estimated. Meanwhile, European Central Bank officials said that though core inflation appears to have “plateaued” any rate hike in September would decide further incoming data.
Asian Stock Markets Updates.
The Asian stock market indexes mostly ended lower during the week, due to weak economic data from China and Japan. However, Indian stock market indexes registered gains for the fourth consecutive week. You can read about the Indian stock market weekly updates here.
Japan Stock Market
Japan’s Nikkei ended lower this week as investors were cautious ahead of the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) next week monetary policy. Investors were nervous, as they are expecting that the central bank would tweak its yield curve control (YCC) framework this time.
June’s core inflation data ticked up but in line with the expectation and this has put some pressure on the BoJ to tighten monetary policy and to raise its inflation forecasts.
Chinese Stock Market
Chinese stock markets closed lower this week as the latest economic data released during the week showed flat growth. The second quarter GDP growth was below economists’ expectations but accelerated compared to the first quarter. The unemployment rate remained steady in June but youth unemployment jumped to a record high in China.
Weakness persists in China’s real estate sectors, as property investment fell 7.9% in the first six months of 2023, down from a 7.2% decline recorded in the first five months of the year. Though the China government pledged to improve conditions for private businesses to boost corporate confidence amid the slowdown, that has failed to attract investors during the week.
Hong Kong benchmark, the Hang Seng index also closed lower during the week.
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