Summary for the 20th of February 2019


The unemployment rate in the UK for the fourth quarter of 2018 was released yesterday. The unemployment rate was at 4%. Average weekly earnings for employees was unchanged at 3.4 %, the market was expecting an increase in the earnings. Still the earning for employees is on an upward trend. Even though the economic growth in the UK was slowing down in the end of 2018, the employment situation isn’t  showing any sign of slowdown.  The reason might be because of companies are still waiting for Brexit agreement to be settled, before they do any changes in their workforce.

The ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment for Germany rose by 1.6 points in February from January. The sentiment is still in negative territory. The assessment of the current economic situation has declined sharply in the past year and indicates a GDP growth of 1%.

Yesterday, the New York Fed President, John Williams said that he was comfortable with the level US interest rates are right now, unless the outlook of economic growth or inflation shifts to an unexpectedly higher gear. Cleveland Fed President, Loretta Mester ,said in yesterday speech that the process of The Fed reducing the balance sheet will be done by the end of 2019. Both speeches give an indication of support about how the Federal Reserve has changed the signals on the monetary policy where it will be more patient about rate hikes.

Indices on the 20th of February: The speeches from Mester and Williams that indicate support for the Fed’s signal of more patient about rate hikes, a better than expected housing market index number and the expectation of the results from the trade talks haven’t triggered strong gains in the stock market.

Dow: A little over positive closed (19th of February )
S&P 500: +0.2% (19th of February)
Nasdaq: +0.2% (19th of February)
Nikkei: +0.5%  (20th of February)
Chinese indices: -0.3% (20th of February)
STOXX Europe 600 Index: +0.67% (20th of February)

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