We would like to start this weekly note by wishing everyone a happy New Year. This has certainly been a busy first week back in markets with various data releases.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivered his first speech of 2023 where he outlined five key targets for 2023. These include halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing debt, cutting NHS waiting times and stopping migrant boats crossing the border. The speech was described as “high on ambition but low in detail” with Mr Sunak making a bold demand that the public judge his premiership on the results achieved. Currently the opposition Labour Party hold a strong lead in the polls to win next year’s election, however Sunak will be hoping to rebuild trust in the Conservative Party.
In December we saw the US Fed slow down its aggressive rate hike trend and this led to a slower 50bps rise. The meeting minutes from December’s meeting were released on Wednesday. The key points were that policymakers are still focused on taming inflation that threatens to run hotter than anticipated and wanted to eliminate any “misperception” that their commitment to fighting inflation was wavering. The next phase for the Fed is to balance its fight against rising prices with the risk of slowing down the global economy too much. Their next meeting is scheduled for 31st January, where another 0.5% rise is expected.
This afternoon we have seen non-farm payrolls for December come in hot as the US economy continued its strong run of job growth, adding 223k jobs. Unemployment is also down to 3.5%, beating the forecasted 3.7%. Government data showed there were 10.45 million job openings at the end of November, this translated to around 1.74 jobs for each unemployed person. This comes as a surprise to the market as major tech companies such as Twitter, Salesforce and more recently Amazon continue to cut thousands of workers after “over-hiring” during the 2020 pandemic.
On brighter news in Germany, inflation eased in December for a second consecutive month. Households received a one-off payment in December to cover energy prices and this had a downward effect on prices. Core inflation (excludes food and energy costs) still remains high, and this has created doubts in economists minds that a continued slowdown is not a given. President Nagel of the Bundesbank predicted that inflation levels would drop to 7% over 2023 before declining significantly in 2024.
Inflation in France also dropped in December, falling to 6.7%, down from a record high a month earlier. This is another sign that a mild winter and slowing energy prices are aiding Europe to overcome the inflation crisis. France has managed to keep inflation lower than other European countries due to government limits on regulated gas and power prices.
Falling inflation data in Europe helped propel European equities. After a strong final quarter of 2022, the unloved equity market has had a strong start in 2023, with the Euro Stoxx index rising close to 3% this week. UK equities have also had a strong start to the year, with both the FTSE 100 and more domestically focused FTSE 250 rising. The US market has been the outlier this week, with the headline index struggling, being dragged down by large falls in stocks such as Tesla, which fell nearly 14% on Tuesday, after declining 65% in 2022.
It was a mixed start to 2023 for commodity markets, with gold nudging higher while oil continued its general downtrend of recent months. Crude oil is currently trading around $73 a barrel, $5 lower than 12 months ago and considerably lower than recent highs of $120 a barrel in March 2022. This weakness in oil is likely to feed into the upcoming inflation data releases and should further support the view that inflation (in the US at least) has now peaked and will fall this year.
As we look forward to this year, a fund manager reminded us to “never waste a good crisis”. 2022 was a tough year across most asset classes and regions however this has created opportunities and with strong portfolio diversification and active management we believe that the outlook is positive for long term investors.
Andrew Triggs, Head of Investments & Nathan Amaning, Investment Analyst
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