Chartbook: March 14
Slides from this week’s internal trading call:
CAD
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
Much like last night’s Oscar winner, the financial markets appear to be exploring every possibility in the multiverse this morning. Major equity indices are oscillating between gains and losses, global bond yields are plummeting, and currency markets are exhibiting flight-to-safety dynamics after authorities stepped in to unwind Silicon Valley Bank and backstop deposits across a US banking sector that is experiencing losses on its long-dated bond holdings. In a joint statement released before Asian trading began, the Federal Reserve, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said that depositors in the collapsed institution would have access to their funds from today, with...
North American Jobs Reports Top Expectations, But Dollar Falls as US Unemployment Rises
311,000 jobs were created in the United States last month, but wage gains decelerated and the unemployment rate jumped as more people entered the workforce – making a half percentage-point hike at the March Federal Reserve meeting marginally less likely. According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning, the unemployment rate climbed to 3.6 percent in February, and the participation rate moved up to 62.5 percent from 62.4 in the prior month, indicating that some workers are coming off the sidelines. The previous two payroll prints were revised down by a combined 34,000. Average hourly earnings...
Contagion
A broad selloff in the US banking sector has wiped out billions of dollars in market value and is lowering expectations for rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. The rout began when a rate-related decline in the value of bond holdings, paired with a related drop in technology-sector deposits, forced SVB Financial Group—parent of Silicon Valley Bank—to raise capital through a share sale and sell roughly $21 billion in securities at a loss. Its shares are down more than 79 percent from yesterday’s open, and the financial sector is receiving a pummelling across the board. Market-implied expectations for the Fed...
Shock and Awwww
Markets are little changed this morning as a sense of calm returns after Tuesday’s traumatic reset in rate expectations. The dollar is dropping against most majors, yields are lower, and equity indices are slightly weaker ahead of two critical pieces of economic data – tomorrow’s non-farm payrolls report and next week’s consumer-price index – that could change the monetary policy outlook. In yesterday’s Congressional testimony, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell largely repeated Tuesday’s hawkish message, but added cautious qualifiers to soften the blow. “We have not made any decision about the March meeting,” he said, “If — and I stress...