CNY

• Headline noise. Markets continue to take geopolitical/macro developments in stride. US equities rose overnight. AUD ticked higher.• US Fed. Investigation into Fed Chair Powell raises concerns about central bank independence. US CPI out tonight. US retail sales due later this week.• AU data. Household spending firmer than expected. AU jobs data (22 Jan) & Q4 CPI (28 Jan) important for RBA. A February rate hike is ~30% priced in. Global Trends A few geopolitical and economic crosscurrents such as developments in Venezuela and some US data have generated modest bursts of intermittent volatility over the past few weeks. But...

• Mixed signals. US data crosscurrents resulted in modest net market moves overnight. US equities consolidated. Oil prices fell. AUD lost a bit of ground.• US data. Core retail sales stronger, but PMIs underwhelmed. Labour market slack increasing with US unemployment highest since Q3 2021.• Macro events. NZ Q3 GDP due tomorrow. US CPI and ECB/BoE/BoJ meetings later this week. BoE expected to cut while BoJ could hike rates again. Global Trends Push-pull forces stemming from the large batch of US economic data released overnight resulted in modest net market moves. On balance, although the tech-focused NASDAQ ticked higher (+0.2%)...

• Equity wobbles. Fresh valuation concerns weighed on US equities on Friday. AUD & NZD lost a bit of ground, but still rose over the past week.• Event Radar. NZ GDP is out (Thurs). US jobs data, retail sales, & CPI due this week. ECB looks set to hold, BoE could cut, & BoJ might hike rates. Global Trends Outside of a narrowly based pullback in US equities on Friday stemming from fresh valuation concerns across the AI sector (S&P500 -1.1%, NASDAQ -1.7%) other market moves were modest. Indeed, even after accounting for Friday’s dip the S&P500 is not that...