Market Updates.

US markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr day.

In the US, the New York Federal Reserve released a survey of consumer expectations on Monday, which showed households in the US had a positive outlook on the jobs market.

‘Twas the week before Christmas, and all markets saw, was a week packed with data and monetary policy galore!

Whilst markets bounced back at the beginning of this week, comforted by reports that so far it does not look like there is a great degree of severity to the Omicron variant, it is still the elephant in the room, and as we said earlier in the week, until clarity is obtained, markets are likely to trade on headlines causing volatility in the short term.

Markets globally have been on a ride so far this week, driven by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and associated snippets in the news, leaving us with a November to remember.

Global equity markets have had a volatile start to the week thanks to speculation that the Fed will speed up the pace of its QE tapering, coupled with concerns that the resurgence in coronavirus cases across Europe will slow the global economic recovery.

After the explosions and excitement of bonfire night festivities over the weekend, markets have come up for air this week, and have broadly been flat.

In what has been a positive start to the week for markets, data releases have been somewhat muted.

The BoE has stolen the show this week following comments over the weekend by Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the BoE, that the central bank “will have to act” to tackle rising inflation.

We had hoped that OPEC would announce a further increase in their output quotas following their October meeting to help satisfy the recovering demand, but unfortunately the cartel simply stated that it would stick to its previously announced increase of 400,000 barrels a day from November.