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Stocks soar in stellar quarter, dollar hits gold and the yen

Stocks soar in stellar quarter, dollar hits gold and the yen
Stocks soar in stellar quarter, dollar hits gold and the yen

On Tuesday, global stocks were on track to achieve their best performance in the second quarter of six years. Meanwhile, a resurgent US dollar drove the yen down to its lowest level in four decades and was heading for a fourth consecutive quarterly increase.

In the last three months the Strait of Hormuz reopened slowly and 'haphazardly' as hostilities between Iran and the U.S. waned, resulting in a fragile ceasefire and a 20% drop in the price of crude oil. A dramatic shift has also occurred in the expectations of U.S. interest rate, against the backdrop of an unstoppable rise in artificial intelligence stock prices.

The MSCI All-World Index has increased by almost 14% in the past three months to new highs, its best performance for the second quarter since 2020.

The majority of gains are due to a fervent rally in AI, especially in Asian markets where indexes from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan registered?double-digit percent gains. The S&P500 is up 14%, and the Nasdaq has gained 20%.

Guy Miller, chief strategist at Zurich Insurance Group, said: "The theme that has largely disappeared is monetary policy support." The futures market priced further rate reductions at the start of the year. Now, that's changed. This is largely due to the current situation in Iran and the increased commodity prices. "What we take away from this is that we don't expect any more cuts by the central banks. But we also don't anticipate a new cycle of hikes." Europe's STOXX 600 index, which has fewer AI beneficiaries than many Asian and U.S. indices, rose 1.1%. It is on track to achieve a gain of 10% for the quarter, after rising every month since march. U.S. Stock Futures?were between 0.1% and 0.2 % higher, indicating a modest rise at the opening bell.

THE WINNING DOLLAR The dollar was the biggest winner in the foreign exchange markets this quarter, with a gain of 1.4% against a basket major currencies.

Investors are building up bullish positions in record numbers, thanks to the remarkable change in the interest rate outlook for the United States, from a cut to a hike, owing to the unexpected strength of the U.S. economic and the persistent inflationary pressures that go beyond energy prices. Dollar's increase has caused gold to fall to its biggest quarterly drop in over a decade. The yen, on the other hand, has fallen to its weakest point in forty years and traded around 162.38 to a dollar on Tuesday. The yen was at its weakest point in 40 years, trading around 162.38 per dollar on Tuesday. Traders had been alerted to the possibility of a Japanese intervention by Finance Minister Satsuki Catayama.

This week, the world's leading central bankers will gather in Sintra for the annual meeting of the European Central Bank. No one will be in the spotlight more than the new Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh who is scheduled to speak on Wednesday.

Warsh's focus on inflation during his first meeting as Fed head earlier this month led traders to price in the prospect that a rate increase will be implemented by October. However, some economists think the economy is strong enough and the inflation obvious enough to warrant an increase as early as July.

Isabelle Mateos y Lago is the BNP Paribas 'group chief economist. She said: "Of all of the major central bankers, Fed policymakers are probably the only one where it seems plausible that they can go in July and hike the rate to get the issue out of the system, in a sense."

"That's certainly not our case, but it's possible that they'd want to move forward and?get that out of the way."

Before Warsh appears, Tuesday will bring a variety of European inflation data, U.S. consumer sentiment data for June, and the JOLTS monthly hirings-and-firings report. The clock is ticking down to the U.S. jobs report on Thursday. Dhara Ranasinghe contributed additional reporting from London, Tom Westbrook reported from Singapore, and Muralikumar Anantharaman edited the story.

(source: Reuters)