Weekly market update : Gloomy start to autumn

With bond yields soaring and aggressive tightening by various central banks, financial markets have just experienced a second consecutive week of sharp declines, weighed down by geopolitical tensions and fears of recession. Volatility has clearly intensified, proof of the nervousness of market participants. This phenomenon is expected to continue in the coming weeks, as Q3 earnings season approaches.

Weekly variations* US 500 3693  -4.65% GENERAL MILLS, INC. +5.21% KELLOGG COMPANY +2.76% ALLEGION PLC +2.62% CARNIVAL CORPORATION -16.82% APA CORPORATION -18.76% CAESARS ENTERTAINMEN... -21.54% DOW JONES INDUST... 29590.41  -4.00% NASDAQ 100 11311.24  -4.64% FTSE 100 7018.60  -3.01% GOLD 1643.93$  -2.02% WTI 79.27$  -7.42% EURO / US DOLLAR 0.97$  -3.26%

This week's gainers and losers

Gainers: US healthcare giants Humana and CVS Health are reportedly bidding to buy Cano Health, the nursing home operator that has been under pressure for months to consider a sale. +25.6% Defense stocks are enjoying a renewed appetite since Vladimir Putin announced the conscription of Russian reservists in the context of the conflict with Ukraine, like Lockheed Martin or BAE Systems (+4%) General Mills (+7.3%), the U.S. food group, known in particular through its brands Cheerios, Häagen-Dazs, or Old El Paso, has raised its forecasts for the current year this week. Aveva (+3.4%): The British group, which specializes in the development and publishing of engineering software for use in the oil and gas, chemical and pharmaceutical, shipbuilding, and electricity production industries, benefited from Schneider Electric's £9.5bn offer. Losers: Ford(-13.2%) is sounding the alarm. Its results will be severely impacted by rising supplier costs. In addition, it will end the quarter with 40,000 to 45,000 unfinished vehicles, due to a lack of parts.  Uber(-10.5%) was the victim of a cyberattack late last week. It forced the cab group to shut down some internal systems. The extent of the damage has not yet been disclosed.  This was a difficult week for tech stocks and the semiconductor sector. Advanced Micro Devices is down more than 50% since the start of the year, and 9.2% for the week. Fedex: (-6.4%) The transport company's stock is still hampered by the poor results and guidance it unveiled last week.

Commodities

Energy: Monetary tightening by the Fed, but also by other central banks, is weighing on risk assets such as oil. Traders continue to see the glass as half empty, concerned about the consequences on demand of monetary tightening, which can be described as widespread. In this context, the new rise in tensions in Ukraine, where the Kremlin has planned referendums to annex 4 Ukrainian regions as well as the mobilization of 300,000 reservists, takes a back seat. The EU is reportedly considering new sanctions against Moscow, including a cap on Russian oil prices. However, reaching a consensus may prove difficult due to the position of some countries such as Hungary. North Sea Brent is trading around USD 89 while US WTI is trading at a discount of almost USD 7 at USD 82 per barrel. Metals: The strengthening dollar weighed on the industrial metals segment, with the exception of nickel and tin, which stabilized at USD 24560 and USD 21650 respectively. Rio Tinto's forecast also weighed on market sentiment as the mining group expects a "challenging" environment for copper in the near term due to soaring prices, which could weigh on demand for the metals. Finally, zinc stocks recorded a further decline in LME facilities to their lowest level since February 2020. On the precious metals side, gold is showing some resistance and is stabilizing around USD 1670. Agricultural commodities: Rising friction in Ukraine has supported wheat prices as it raises new concerns about compliance with Black Sea supply agreements. Wheat is trading near 900 cents a bushel in Chicago, compared to 680 cents for corn.

Macroeconomics

Atmosphere: Did everyone get it right this time? The U.S. central bank has reiterated that the fight against inflation will be tough, complicated and long. Other countries have also raised rates, including Norway, Switzerland and the UK. The impact of these restrictive monetary policies can already be seen on activity indices, but not yet on prices... hence some distress among investors. Currencies: Two important pieces of news this week. On the one hand, the euro has just tested lows against the dollar, below 0.98 USD for 1 EUR. On the other hand, the Bank of Japan wants to put an end to the yen's slide against the greenback (-25% since January 1). It has intervened in the market for the first time in the millennium to protect the 145 JPY/USD mark. Forex traders are not really surprised, but are wondering how the BoJ can hold the shock, while continuing its accommodative policy. Rates: The Fed's determination has broken the last dikes in the bond market. The yield on U.S. 10-year debt rose from 3.47% last week to 3.77% on Friday. The yield curve is still inverted with the 2-year maturity paying 4.24%. In Europe, the trajectory is identical, with more pronounced increases among issuers considered less qualitative. Swiss debt is at 1.37% over 10 years, the German Bund at 2.04%, the French OAT at 2.62% and the Italian BTP at 4.31%. The British Gilt is at 3.76%.   Cryptocurrencies: Crypto-currencies remain under pressure like the rest of financial assets. Bitcoin is below USD 19,000 per unit (-9% in one month) while Ether is trading around USD 1290 (-18% in one month). Calendar: From what we've seen, every day next week will host at least one central banker speech. If they start grating on you, you might want to avoid the media for a few days. In the US, there will also be some important statistics, including Durable Goods Orders and Consumer Confidence (Tuesday) and PCE inflation (Friday). In Europe, the German business climate (Monday) will precede the first estimate of September inflation, as early as Friday.

Gloomy start to autumn While central banks keep raising key rates, markets continue plunging after a week of decline of nearly 4.4% for the S&P 500. The broad index of the 500 largest U.S. companies has fallen by nearly 15% since mid-August. The Fed believes that US inflation will be contained around 4.50% by the end of 2022. High inflation rarely falls in a steady and predictable manner and the disappointing August data came after better-than-expected figures for July. While growth is likely to slow very soon, commodity prices have calmed down lately. Panic is now apparent across markets, so the reckless among will start buying on the cheap, while others will wait for a more bullish trend.

Things to read this week

Textron, aeronautics Made in America We will detail Textron's activities through its four main divisions, each with its own characteristics. Two-thirds of sales are made in the United States and... Read more This might be the right time to buy GoPro Smartphones have admittedly reduced the TAM for action cameras, but the latter do retain their place in the market as specialized, fit-for-purpose content... Read more NetApp, Inc. : Everything is not what it seems There are three basic types of cloud: Public, where data is hosted on an outside provider's infrastructure, such as Microsoft, Amazon, or Google. This is the... Read more

*The weekly movements of indexes and stocks displayed on the dashboard are related to the period ranging from the open on Monday to the sending time of this newsletter on Friday. The weekly movements of commodities, precious metals and currencies displayed on the dashboard are related to a 7-day rolling period from Friday to Friday, until the sending time of this newsletter. These assets continue to quote on weekends.