US markets have bounced back from last week’s drop, posting their best four-day winning streak since May, to get back to being close to flat for the month, after dropping quite sharply in the first three weeks. Investors showed renewed appetite for risk this week, with the S&P 500 up 3.18%, the Nasdaq up 4.23%,…
Markets this week continued to puzzle over whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) related stocks are overvalued and whether a correction is imminent. The release of Nvidia’s blowout third-quarter results, an important sentiment barometer for the sector, has not settled the debate. Equities slumped last week as concerns about an AI bubble surfaced. Weakness carried through to…
South African markets basked in good news this week, with traders reacting positively to Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on Wednesday. The JSE All-Share Index continued its hot run, climbing 3.3% for the week at the time of writing. The rand, meanwhile, briefly strengthened to below R17 to the dollar, a…
Fears that Artificial Intelligence (AI) stocks are in a bubble reemerged this week as a few prominent American CEOs and various market commentators suggested that valuations are becoming overheated. Notably, Michael Burry, an investor who wagered on a US housing market crash in the run-up to the Global Financial Crisis, has placed a $1.1 billion…
Markets were lifted by a range of tailwinds this week. Positive talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping boosted hopes that trade tensions would ease. Markets also welcomed a second interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve, although this was already largely priced in. But the single most important factor…
Precious metals prices corrected sharply this week amid market optimism about easing trade tensions between China and the US, as well as traders locking in profits following months of strong gains. Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium saw steep losses early in the week before stabilising by Thursday and dipping again on Friday in a week…
US equities have experienced another week of helter-skelter trading, repeating the pattern of recoveries and sell-offs we have seen several times this year. The S&P 500 fell 2.7% and the Nasdaq Composite plunged 3.6% last Friday in one of the worst days of trading since US President Donald Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs back…
Government shutdowns are a recurring feature of US politics, caused by partisan standoffs about government spending priorities. The latest shutdown, the first in nearly seven years and the third across US President Donald Trump’s two terms, started on 1 October after Congress failed to pass a stopgap funding bill. The stopgap bill failed to pass…
We are seeing many of the old assumptions break down as post-pandemic inflation remains stickier than expected and consumer behaviour evolves, as illustrated in two different opinion pieces that were published this week. To fully understand the landscape, we need to look back to the pandemic. Massive fiscal stimulus, aggressive interest rate cuts, and supply…
