Market Brief, North America

The dollar is advancing, yields are higher, and equity futures are in retreat as more overt hawkishness from a Fed official weighs on global risk sentiment. Markets tumbled yesterday morning when Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari – doing his best to become the new Jim Bullard – suggested that further rate hikes remained a possibility. Speaking at a monetary policy forum in London, Kashkari said “the odds of us raising rates are quite low,” but “we could stay on hold for an indefinite period of time, and “I don’t think anyone has totally taken rate increases off the table”. Kashkari’s...

The dollar is holding steady, Treasury yields are essentially unchanged, and equity futures are edging higher as US market participants return from the Memorial Day long weekend. Both the pound and euro are trading near the tops of their respective trading ranges as economic growth prospects brighten and expected yield trajectories edge higher. A series of data releases over the last month have provided evidence of a bottoming in both economies, with last week’s purchasing manager indices delivering the clearest view yet into the improvement in sentiment that could underpin growth in the manufacturing and services sectors. The European Central...

With a long weekend ahead, the dollar looks set to consolidate its biggest weekly advance since early April as markets capitulate in the face of hotter-than-expected US growth data and a more hawkish Federal Reserve. The greenback is down slightly in early trade against all of its major counterparts – other than the yen – but remains roughly half a percent stronger on the week, two-year Treasury yields are up a little more than 2 percent, and equity futures are steadily giving back Wednesday’s gains ahead of the North American open. Defying our expectations, the US economic activity accelerated in...