Russell Shor

The Bank of England held the official bank rate at 5.25%, with Catherine Mann and Jonathan Haskel being the only two hawks favouring a 25bps hike. This is more hawkish than expected as general thinking was that the three hawks that voted in December would relent. Moreover, the statement indicated that the central bank was still concerned over the persistence of inflation, with the forecast for inflation pushing back against…

Microsoft (MSFT.us) delivered $2.93 EPS on a revenue of $62.02 billion for the quarter ended 31 December 2023. This is ahead of Wall Street estimates of $2.77 EPS and $61.1 billion. In effect, the company’s earnings increased 33% on a year-over year basis and sales increased by 18%.

Bitcoin has appreciated as a general risk-on sentiment has grown and will react to the FOMC rate announcement tomorrow. In this regard, it is anticipated that yields will decline over the course of 2024, which should provide a tailwind to the risk market, including cryptocurrencies.

Core PCE has come in at 2.9% y/y, with a strong showing in disinflation towards the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. The monthly number is 0.17%, which annualises to 2.01%. There is a general confidence that the Federal Reserve is well on its way to hitting its inflation target, with the market currently giving a 50-50 chance of a 25bps cut in March and a 90% chance in May.

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, acknowledged that the demand for artificial intelligence chips is booming. According to reporters in Taiwan, he said that AI is a “rebirth of the industry” with this year as “a huge year.”

Netflix (NFLX.us) posted better-than-expected revenue for Q4. The company also added 13.1 million net new subscribers in the quarter, which is a substantial beat over the 8.7 million net subscribers the company had forecast. This makes it the best-ever fourth quarter for new subscribers. Promising was that the growth was for all regions, and the company now has 260.3 million subscribers globally.

Chinese authorities are considering a rescue package to stabilise its ailing stock market. This is not a surprising given how poorly FXCM’s CHN50 basket has performed. On a longer-term monthly scale, CHN50 is sitting in a bearish channel between its lower blue and red bands. Moreover, the momentum-based RSI is languishing below 50, denoting an underlying bearish momentum.

The USDOLLAR is repricing as the chances of a March rate cut dissipate. Currently the CME FedWatch Tool has the probability for a March cut at 42.4%, which is a big decline from the 76.98% from a weak ago.

Apple has been banned from selling current versions of its Apple Watch in the US as a federal appeals court decides on the patent dispute regarding a sensor. This suggests that the company may pull the watches from stores for the second time in less than a month.

FXCM’s US.BANKS basket has risen strongly since its low in mid-October last year. However, the strong appreciation resulted in an overbought condition to start 2024 (red vertical). As a result, it not a surprise to see the basket pulling back over the last week and a half as the oscillator normalises.

Microsoft (MSFT.us) is expanding the scope of its Copilot artificial intelligence software. In particular, the company will focus on consumers and small businesses.