Analysts at Nomura point out that for the US, it has been a quiet week for data, with only retail sales worth a mention as headline sales were a little below our expectation in April at 0.3%, but positive revisions to February and March made up the difference.
Key Quotes
“The consumer’s contribution to growth in 2018 will be less significant than in recent years, with business investment and government spending instead to make or break the growth outturn. We have however seen some interesting moves in US financial markets this week. The 10yr Treasury yield jumped back through 3.00% and currently looks settled around 3.10%. Also the US dollar has continued its uptrend, up another 1.0% this week to be 5.5% higher than the mid-February low. Whereas gains like these for US yields and the dollar adversely affected equities earlier this year, in this instance equity investors have shown little-to-no concern, with the S&P500 broadly unchanged compared to this time last week.”
“Likely providing comfort to equity markets is the steady guidance being offered by members of the FOMC and regional Federal Reserve Banks. Put simply, their expectation remains for a gradual rise in the fed funds rate, but only if above-trend growth continues and the labour market tightens further.”
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