Markets Anticipate New Volatility

The fears for an early termination of Federal Reserve’s (FED) stimulus might be gone for now after the US down revision of growth, and disappointing data on jobless claims at the end of last week. This does not help global markets which are entering July, nervous for new volatility. Hopefully the panic selling of equities witnessed in June has come to an end, but a poll demonstrates that managers have taken substantial capital out of their funds, sitting on the fence with cash waiting for a new development.

The US stock markets ended in red on Friday with Dow Jones Industrial again dipping below the critical 15 000 benchmark. Global stock markets lost ground in June giving away 1.3 % of the gains in 2013, triggered mainly by several central banks economic stimulus. Hardest hit are the markets in Asia. Japan’s “Abenomics” turned for a short while the Japanese Nikkei seemed to be a success story. The Nikkei, however, suffered serious losses with the strengthening of the YEN on FED’s indication for a possible deadline for their bond buying program.

It has been a lackluster month for commodities and precious metals. Gold, which for the last fifteen years has been regarded as a strong hedge, has fallen 23% only the last quarter. It recovered nicely on Friday, but this “recovery” might rather be seen as a technical correction after the earlier steep falls. Commodities with copper was also up 1% last week after losing 10% the last quarter. Oil prices have been keeping relatively steady. Brent has been able to stay above the critical USD 100 a barrel.

The Dollar gained ground against both the Yen and the Euro on Friday. EUR/USD dipped again below 1.30 after breaking through the strong technical resistance represented by the 200 days moving average on 1.3062 earlier in the week. The President of the ECB, Mario Draghi, suggested that it might be necessary to undertake stronger ECB-stimulus to get the Euro zone out of the deep recession as European finance ministers are becoming increasingly worried of the social and economic consequences of an unemployment figure above 25 % in many member countries

The unemployment among youth is reaching alarming proportions and stands above 50% in most southern European countries. On Friday, Croatia became the last country to join the EU, but the prospects of privatizations leading to more unemployment does not generate great enthusiasm. If the EU, based on recession realities, have to take talk on stimulus seriously, that shall immediately have a negative effect on the strength of the Euro. Volatility seems therefore to be the order of the day in July.