This Week In Markets: 11th - 14th April 2022 (French Election Update, US CPI & Earnings Preview)

OK, hello and welcome to the look ahead for this week. It is Sunday the 10th of April. It's just gone through 11 PM, quite late here in London, but I thought I wanted to jump on and just talk you through the latest French election results. But more than that, give you a quick heads up on what to look out for for the week ahead. Lots of important data coming out, CPI from the likes of the US, from the UK. We've also got rate decisions from the likes of the Bank of Canada, the ECB, US retail sales at the end of the week. And then obviously it's, it's Good Friday, so a holiday-shortened week overall. But just jumping straight into what's going on in France, and the latest poll projections have just come out. And as you can see here, Macron got around 28% of the vote compared with just 24% for Marine Le Pen, according to the pollsters' projections on the partial results. So still yet to be conclusive, but those two definitely heading into the runoff. The top two candidates are actually going to have a presidential debate That's kind of the next big thing to look out for. That's going to happen on the 20th of April. And anyone who remembers 2017, well, will know that Le Pen had a bit of a disaster. And Macron's actually pretty decent at these televised debate situations. He's had plenty of practice, of course, for the last couple of years being in power. So definitely that's going to be quite a big final, I guess, staging post for then who will take it home on the runoff on April 24th. Overall expectations are leaning towards still Macron. And actually, at electronic open, the euro has jumped up a decent amount, probably not likely to be sustained because anxiety will still be quite high in that local market for any types of complacency still, that this is not going to be far from a walk in the park at this point. And Macron's obviously been quite distracted by foreign affairs, whereas Le Pen's, you know, been super busy domestically. So Yeah, at the moment I'd still probably keep an eye on the French situation, namely impact on the euro, keeping an eye particularly on the French 10-year yield, which jumped up quite sharply last week and blew out those, uh, the yield spreads. And definitely probably going to see still, as I said, a degree of anxiety and volatility in those assets in the run-up to this. So that's the French situation. Otherwise, a few other things to mention. One is US earnings kick off this week. This means then the first week typically we get a lot of the US banks— JPMorgan on Wednesday, you get the likes of Citi, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs coming out on Thursday. And the thing I wanted to share really was this, which is that from those aforementioned names, actually they're going to report their biggest slowdown in investment banking revenue in years. And equity capital markets, IPOs in particular, have slowed quite dramatically in the last few weeks. And on average, as you can see here, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg, those aforementioned banks are expected to report a 26% drop in investment banking fees. On average, analysts are forecasting overall revenues at the banks to fall about 10%. The one bright spot perhaps that has been mentioned by a few is that revenue from trading, so the global markets kind of division, is probably going to have held up better than many had expected. Analysts at Morgan Stanley, I thought, summarized the situation quite, quite well. What they said was that while banks have severe potential tailwinds ahead of them, including of course higher interest rates and accelerating loan growth, tail risks have clearly increased due to the war, including a higher probability of recession as the Fed raises rates more rapidly in order to bring down inflation. So a miscalculation by the Fed there obviously would have large impacts on then the overall economy and subsequent the banks, albeit that the banks do like a rate cycle, if you like, with what we've seen commence at the moment in the US. So yeah, looking out for those midweek. Otherwise, going to quickly mention the latest Fed comment just because it was a voter. Fed's Mester commented today she's confident the US will avoid a recession. So talking about that particular topic, as the Fed tightens policy, the inflation rate will probably remain at or more than 2% into next year. So not really too much to to read into that. Otherwise, look, let's jump straight into the calendar. And before I get on to major Western European data points, do note that in a few hours' time— so as I said, this is Sunday, I'm recording this— going into overnight session in the APAC region, China gets started with consumer and producer price readings, and they are set to show a slight moderation in industrial inflation. Credit and trade data then is going to follow on Thursday. But coming back to this, we do have, as As you can see, the top figure, UK February GDP estimate, that's going to come out in a few hours' time Monday morning. Now for that figure in itself, it is expected to rise. Actually, the Bloomberg consensus is for 0.3%, so a slight slowdown from 0.8%. I don't really see too much of a great deal of importance with this particular figure, even though it is GDP. And the reason for that is because it's quite far backward looking. This is a February release, so misses really the large portion of when the Ukrainian crisis really started to kick off. The subsequent inflation shock that ensued from thereafter and therefore the impact that that's had on consumer confidence through the, the increasing costs of living that we've been seeing in the UK. So overall, the GDP situation is probably going to look a little bit different going forward. And with the jobs data equally that we get on Tuesday from the UK, that's also February figures. Probably the one thing I'd suggest keeping an eye on there is the wage component. And the reason for that is for any second round effects of inflation, because inflation of course was already moving north before any of the Ukraine crisis and energy squeeze that we've had started to ensue. Otherwise, just going chronological order, looking at Tuesday, Tuesday then you get US CPI figures. And let's just have a look, they did have a chart here that I saw before, so this gives it a bit more of a graphical representation. Of course, inflation in the US tracking up at a 4-decade high, is expected to come in at 8.4% on Tuesday, up 7.9%, again driven predominantly by gasoline prices. But as shocking as that number sounds, it's unlikely to, I think, really move the needle a great deal for what markets are expecting. Money markets are still very much highly pricing in a 50 basis point move at the May meeting from the Fed. We had that kind of hawkish pivot very significantly from what otherwise is a leaning dove in Lirel Brainard last week, and that really did impact yields quite quite significantly. So the fact that that number is going to come out on the high side, I don't think it's going to create too much disturbance to market activity overall, but of course it will be a real headline grabber. And then just go back to the calendar, going to Wednesday, you get the UK CPI reading. That again is also expected to, to move quite substantially higher to 6.7% from the previous 6.2%. The core reading expected at 5.4% from 5.2%, mainly lifted by upside pressure on food and energy prices by way of means of the impact from the Ukraine crisis. The difference here for the UK CPI data comparative to GDP and the jobs data is that the CPI data is for the month of March. Although that figure, 6.7%, is, is frighteningly high, one thing is we already know that that number is going to go well further north than that, and that's because we of course have to digest still the 54% increase in the Ofgem price cap that saw everyone's energy bills shoot higher at the beginning of April. So although it's gone up quite a bit, it's going to take another significant leg higher in the coming month. And not forgetting the fact that the Bank of England have already communicated that inflation is set to rise to around 8% in the second quarter of this year. So it shouldn't really come as a surprise and therefore shouldn't really have too much of a market impact at this point. The limit on energy bills is actually expected to rise again, of course, which I'm sure many of you are aware of. Ofgem have their semi-annual review and this tends to fall then the next one in October. And the Office of Budget Responsibility, the OBR in the UK, expects consumer price growth to peak at close to 9% in the fourth quarter of this year. So yes, 6.7% is a big jump on the prior month and is a very high figure, but it's going to get a lot worse, I'm afraid, as far as price pressures are concerned in the UK. So Again, on that basis, it shouldn't really come as too much of a surprise given the context of what I've just described. Other things to look out for. Yeah, on Wednesday, after a 25 basis point rise in March, the consensus expects the Bank of Canada will hike actually by 50 basis points at the April meeting, taking its main rate to 1%. That's according to a Reuters poll. And then we move on to Thursday. we get the ECB interest rate decision. They are expected to stand pat, no real change in policy given some of the changes that we saw the last time out. Analysts expect the ECB is likely to stick to its plan for ending bond purchases in the third quarter and say it will keep its options open for speeding up or slowing down the withdrawal of stimulus depending on how the economy responds in the coming months. But yeah, could be interesting. Not that we get minutes like the Bank of England on the day of the release, but there's been a lot of conflicting— seemingly a battle between the real hawks and the doves on the ECB Governing Council at the moment. So whether or not that starts to emerge during the press conference with Lagarde, something I'd be watching for. And then on Thursday, US retail sales expected to rise to 0.6% from previous 0.2%. Analysts at Credit Suisse note that the unit vehicle sales fell for the second straight month in March, which suggests that auto sales will drag on overall retail sales in the month. However, higher gas prices, which were up about 18% on the month measured, linked to the impact from the Russia-Ukraine war, will help boost the headline and offset some of the weakness seen from the vehicle sales component that I've just mentioned. So that is pretty much it. I mean, there's obviously lots of other stuff, of course, going on. There always is. But hopefully that just gives you a bit of a flavor for some of the main things to look out for. For the week ahead. So any comments or questions, anything like that at all, feel free to drop me a comment in the section below on the video. Otherwise, have a great week.