Global growth worries were stoked once again this week as commodities bore the brunt of heavy selling pressure and the USD surged higher. Stagflationary, inflationary, and recession fears continue to dominate investors’ minds. Even oil, which has been so resilient, fell over 10% on Tuesday once the US came back from the July 4th holiday. On a positive note, China showed further signs of economic activity after the lifting of some of the latest COVID restrictions. However, China’s COVID zero policy is a worry to many investors as economic activity can quickly fall on large scale lockdowns if COVID cases surge again.
Other key events from the past week
- Commodity crunch: Sharp falls, July 5: Commodities experienced heavy selling this week as slowing global growth is expected to hinder longer-term demand. Oil, copper, iron ore, and grains all fell lower on global recession fears.
- China recovery: Recovery on track? July 5: The Caixin composite reading surprised to the upside at 55.3 above the 50.0 forecast. This continues to point to a recovery in China’s economic activity and this supports the China 50 view from March.
- AUD: Interest Rate Decision, July 5: The RBA hiked interest rates by 50bps as expected this week. However, on balance, the RBA was slightly less hawkish in its statement and said that inflation levels were higher in other countries.
Key events for the coming week
- NZD: Interest Rate Decision, July 13: The RBNZ meet next week and short-term interest rate (STIR) markets are pricing in a 100% chance of a 50 bps rate hike. STIR markets also see a 70% chance of a larger 75bps rate hike.
- Apple’s Strong Summer? Apple enters its strong seasonal summer period.
- CAD: Interest Rate Decision, July 13: The last BoC meeting saw another hawkish tilt. See the previous BoC meeting analysis here. If the BoC is not as hawkish as the market is expecting watch out for sudden CAD falls in the CADJPY pair.
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