Stocks (MXAP) dropped as Treasury yields held at the highest level since the global financial crisis and investors assessed companies’ resilience to economic headwinds in the latest earnings reports.
Europe’s Stoxx 600 fell more than 1%, with
Adidas AG plunging the most in seven months after the German sportswear maker cut its outlook for the year. US stock futures were lower.
A gauge (MXAP) of Asian equities
headed for a second week of declines. Shares of some Chinese chip-related stocks fell as the US was said to be considering new export controls that would limit China’s access to powerful computing technologies.
The dollar rose amid elevated Treasury yields.
The yield on the 10-year US note went above 4.25% for the first time since 2008 as traders started to price in a higher peak Federal Reserve policy rate.
The yen remained weaker than the closely
watched 150 per dollar level.
Ten-year yen swap rates broke above 0.6% to a more than eight-year high while Japan’s benchmark 10-year bond yield was at the top of the central bank’s 0.25% trading band, underscoring global pressure on rates.
Investors are focused on the UK, where the
Conservative Party is desperate to draw a line under Liz Truss’s disastrous premiership with a rapid leadership contest that could see the next leader decided as soon as Monday.
The pound weakened and yields on 10-year UK government debt climbed.
The Bank of England was probably on
the hook in terms of having to hike rates
aggressively to counter some of the inflationary impulses from tax cuts and fiscal spending,”
Mitul Kotecha, chief emerging markets Asia and Europe strategist at TD Securities, said on Bloomberg Television. While some of that pressure has gone away, it doesn’t mean the BOE can stop hiking, he said.
Hawkish remarks from Fed officials and
swaps pricing in a 5% peak policy rate in 2023 should continue to support the greenback against its major peers and emerging-market currencies.
The yield on 10-year Treasuries headed for
a 12-week streak of increases that would
match the duration of the 1984 episode when then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker was carrying out a series of rapid interest rate hikes.
