This Week In Markets: 25-29 April 2022 (French Election Result, Twitter Update, US Earnings Preview)

Okay, hope you're doing well. It's Sunday, 24th of April, and as per usual, look to summarize then the major news from the weekend, including the result where Macron has won the French election. I'll get to that in a little bit more detail in a moment. We're also going to round up some of the other major news where Twitter apparently looking to be a little bit more interested now in some conversations been happening between Elon Musk and themselves over the weekend. We've got updates as well from ECB sources talking about potential policy tightening on the horizon. Season as well as monetary policy potential shifts in China. And then we've got earnings season really steps up a gear or two this week. We've got around 178 S&P 500 companies reporting. This does include the mega-cap tech names like Amazon, your Microsofts, Apple, Meta Platforms, and so on. So it's going to be a real key week for earnings. Also as well, we've got energy majors like Exxon Chevron, more consumer-based stocks like Pepsi, Coca-Cola. So the full selection, if you like, of corporate earnings. Then from a data perspective, we've got US Q1 GDP. We've also got the flash inflation and GDP readings come out of the eurozone towards the back end of the week. So plenty to get your teeth into for this week. But look, let's kick things off and talk about France. And what do we have? And Macron has defeated Le Pen to win the second term as a French president. And this first time that that's happened, the incumbent winning a second term in about 20 years in France. So definitely one that will be not forgotten quickly in that respect. But the gap, fairly significant. But one of the things that people will obviously talk about is the fact that the movement to support of far right was, was pretty high in the context of historical norms. But nonetheless, Macron, as was expected, having a victory margin of around 58 to 59 against 41, 42. So fairly convincing in that, in that fashion. Although Macron's victory was very much expected, the polls had started to diverge ever since that live television debate on Wednesday, kind of a late surge that Macron had had. And that was kind of what we were calling for as well. If you're listening to the podcast, The Market Maker on Amplify Me on Friday, and Piers and I were talking. But that doesn't mean that we won't be potentially without a little bit of light relief for initial euro assets on the back of this result. Obviously, the shock Le Pen victory has not materialized. So a bit of unwinding of those potential hedges would expect the likes of the CAC 40, the French stock market, French bonds to push a little higher, perhaps a little bump for the euro. I wouldn't expect those moves to last particularly long, though, and certainly probably not throughout the entire week where we still tend to be dominated a lot by dollar fluctuation at the moment, given some of the yield movement that we're seeing with the continuous hawkish pivots that we're seeing from the Federal Reserve. But also, as we'll discuss in a moment, in the eurozone as well. Don't forget as well, we still have the French legislative elections in France in the summer to determine the members of parliament, and each with the right then to sit in the National Assembly, which is the lower house of French parliament. And that's really going to dictate then the strength of will of, of parliament to push through the Macron agenda, and likelihood that's going to be again quite a challenge that he will confront. So again, I'd say a little bit of a light relief, just a version of the worst-case scenario. But beyond that, I wouldn't look to this to be a real definitive thing to base strategies on beyond the short term. Otherwise, some other headlines to be aware of. The Twitter saga rolls on. Twitter reexamining Elon Musk's bid and may be more receptive now to a deal. You remember it was all the poison pill self-defense that was adopted after the hostile takeover approach from Musk. And what this has led to then is he at the end of last week, he got his financing packages together, constructed in various different forms. But then he was then looking to potentially hint towards a tender offer. So, you know, there's a lot of backdoor conversations that I'm sure are happening, particularly over the weekend. Sentiment within Twitter has said that it might be changing after Musk met privately with several shareholders on Friday to pitch his proposal, according to sources in The Wall Street Journal. And this is kind of the normal practice that you would envisage whenever a poison pill strategy has been adopted. Musk had also reiterated to the Twitter chairman, Bret Taylor, in recent days that he would not adjust that $54.20 a share offer, according to that same Journal report. So that's his final one at the moment. Now, I don't quite believe that to be final, but obviously that's the staging post for these negotiations that are happening behind doors at the moment. One thing to say is Twitter earnings, I think, come out pre-market Thursday. And of course, Elon Musk, as ever, has been busy on Twitter. This was one that you might have seen. He tweeted at the weekend— yes, you have seen and read that strapline, right? He tweeted, 'In case you need to lose a boner fast.' There's a picture, of course, of Bill Gates on the left and a pregnant or a beer-bellied man on the right-hand side. And that's one of the only tweets I think I've ever seen. Elon Musk has cracked a million likes. The guy certainly knows how to kind of juice the moment in that respect from a marketing side. So yeah, expect lots of Elon Musk tweets and the Twitter kind of circus to continue for this week. The other thing then is talking a little bit more about monetary policy. What have we got there? Well, the ECB policymakers are keen to end their bond purchase scheme at the earliest possible moment, and the ECB also wants to raise interest rates as soon as July, but no later than September, according to 9 sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters news agency. So again, this isn't too new. We did have something similar emanating from the comments from the vice ECB president, Luis de Guindos, at the end of last week. So kind of in fitting with that and again with this whole narrative of what we're seeing with the push towards higher yields to tackle rampant inflation at the moment and the ECB playing a degree of catch-up in that respect. Just jumping back onto Twitter because I did share the earnings docket for this week, which you can see here. So as I said earlier, there's 175 S&P 500 companies reporting, of which 13 are of the 30 Dow components as well. As you can see here, you've got the likes of Coca-Cola pre-market on Monday, then Tuesday you've got GE, PepsiCo, 3M. So a couple of big Dow components there. Then aftermarket Tuesday, Microsoft, Alphabet, Visa, Boeing premarket Wednesday, Meta Platforms aftermarket on Wednesday, premarket Thursday, as I mentioned, Twitter. We also got Caterpillar, McDonald's, to name more. And then Apple, Amazon are going to be due aftermarket on Thursday with Exxon Chevron on Friday, as they always are. So yeah, quite a, quite a lot to look out for then and a range of different companies. So the mega tech We've got payment companies, oil majors, consumer companies, the full nine yards. So going to be a busy one on that respect. And don't forget to just follow us on all the social media channels on LinkedIn, AmplifyMe account, myself as well, and my other colleagues. We put out stuff all the time. And don't forget to subscribe to our daily newsletter if you're a student looking to just stay on top of the news and, and also get some career tips and things like that. Otherwise, Going back to then, other global news to be aware of, the situation in Ukraine, albeit getting from a market perspective much lower airplane now as kind of the, the directions being more taken on the product of that crisis and what impact it's had on inflation. The market is more now kind of focused in on what's happening to yields, which is a reflection of future monetary future monetary policy decisions. But what is happening in Ukraine? Well, Putin has apparently lost interest now in diplomatic efforts to end the war with Ukraine and instead appears set on seizing as much Ukrainian territory as possible, according to 3 people briefed on conversations with the Russian president himself. Zelensky said on Saturday he wanted the talks to go on but said Ukraine would not continue negotiating if people in Mariupol were killed or if Russian authorities in the occupied southern region of Kherson were to stage a separatist referendum. Otherwise, for any oil traders, something else to be aware of. The Libyan State Oil Company has said armed clashes at the western port of Zawiya have damaged several storage tanks. In fact, preliminary assessments indicate that 29 sites, including oil derivatives tanks and several other tanks, have been damaged, according to the national oil company. Themselves in a statement late on Saturday. To give you a bit of context in terms of production rates at the moment and the impact that this is having, Libya's daily production has fallen by around half a million. It was at around 1.3 million before the kind of height of this latest civil tension took place, um, in the past 10 days. As protesters are calling for the Prime Minister to quit, have shut down ports and fields. The NOC have been forced to close the Sharara and El Feel in the west and some Eastern deposits as well. So something to just definitely keep in mind here with a lot of attention, of course, on the OPEC monthly rolling decisions. We're only around another week and a half or so from their next one as well. And then China, just a quick word. Two Chinese state banks will apparently cut deposit rate ceilings in the overnight session as regulators urge lower financing costs to support smaller companies. Reuters reported on Sunday they were citing unidentified people familiar with the issue. And I'm sure you've seen lots of scenes as well of kind of fencing put up and locking people into buildings. And the COVID situation is still seemingly particularly bad at the moment in the likes of Shanghai and elsewhere in China. So something to just be aware of and keep an eye on as we go through the week. As far as the calendar is concerned, I'm not going to go through this all line by line, but a couple of headlines or highlights to be aware of. You've got German IFO coming out. On Monday. You've then got durable goods in the US coming out on Tuesday, but the major events really are Q1 US GDP on Thursday. It is expected to show the US grew an annualized rate of around 1% in the first 3 months of the year. That's obviously a distinct slowdown from the pace of 6.9% we saw in Q4 of 2021. It would also mark the slowest growth then if that 1% was to come in since the recession induced by COVID lockdowns in 20 2020. And then going into Friday, well, Thursday and Friday, you get the eurozone. So you can see here Germany, Spain CPI figures, and then you get the actual flash number on Friday as well as the flash eurozone GDP figures. They'll provide the most comprehensive indication really so far about the impact that this Ukraine war has had on the eurozone area as a whole in terms of economic activity. And then something that's not on here but to be aware of, the Bank of Japan do have their latest interest rate meeting. Not expecting too much in the way of any policy changes at this point. They seemingly one of the major central banks in the world that are not in the kind of tightening mindset of what we've seen from the Bank of England, the Fed, the ECB, and others. Traders are going to be particularly attentive to any commentary or measures taken on the currency given the recent, recent rapid decline that we've seen in the Japanese yen, which has seen dollar-yen briefly climb to 129, the highest level it's traded in about 20 years. So particularly interested to keep an eye on that. And that is it. So I'm not going to go on any further, but any questions at all, feel free to just leave a comment. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel, and I will drop a link in the first comment of this video for our Market Maker daily newsletter. So if you do want some market analysis, and again, it's really aimed at students or people just starting out their careers. So includes lots of other career hacks and, and useful nuggets of information. Uh, feel free to subscribe to that and I'll see you next time. Take care.