Weekly Market Summary.

The improving prospects for a US/China trade deal and an agreement to avoid another US government shutdown allowed global equity markets to chalk up some pretty good returns this week.

It has been a bit of an uneventful week as a number of markets in Asia have been closed for various days due to Lunar New Year celebrations (China’s markets were closed all week). However, to be honest it has been a bit of a relief given the volatility of the last couple of months due to rising US interest rates, the US government shutdown, trade war concerns, Brexit and French unrest.

The media may be obsessed with Brexit, but the market was more interested in this week’s Fed monetary policy meeting and progress on US/China trade talks.

Most global equity markets took a breather after recent gains and ended the week virtually unchanged. Monday’s (21 January 2019) Chinese Q4 GDP slowed to a 6.4% annualised growth rate, down from 6.5% in Q3. As a result, 2018 full year growth came in at 6.6%.

Boy, what a week we have had! Who says politics is boring? Obviously Brexit has taken centre stage, but rather than regurgitate the news flow, it is important to put everything that has happened in context.

The past week was a short one for markets, seeing the New Year ushered in and the majority of markets closed the week significantly higher.

There were positive noises on the outlook for US-China trade talks after China lowered tariffs on imported American cars from 40% to 15%.

Although Donald Trump described last Saturday’s (1 December 2018) meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, as a “BIG leap forward” after they agreed a 90 day truce, equity markets were disappointed by the lack of specific details.

I appreciate that many clients are getting bored with me going on and on about US interest rates, but as the adage goes: equity bull markets don’t die of old age, but are killed off by the US Federal Reserve.