The US-China trade war, US economic data, the trade war talks between the Trump administration and China and data from that country late in the week will make for a mixed week in the US.
There are growing fears the US economy is turning down, but so far that hasn’t had a dramatic impact on markets – the volatile China-US trade talks is a far more inflammatory risk so far as investors are concerned.
So share markets continued were mostly stronger last week with US shares up 0.4%, Eurozone shares adding 0.6% (and up nearly 11% for the year so far), Japanese shares up 0.8%, Chinese shares surging 6.7% on positive trade and access news and Australian shares gaining 0.4%.
Wall Street only ended higher by a solid rise on Friday as a new month started and the northern spring approaches.
The S&P 500 jumped 0.7% on Friday to register its highest close since November 8. The rise ended a three-day losing streak, the longest of the year so far and left the index up 0.4% for the week.
The Dow rose 0.4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 0.8%. For the week the Dow was just down by 0.02% while the Nasdaq rose 0.9%
The S&P 500 was up 3% last month and 11% over the first two months of the year, its best annual start since 1991, amid growing hopes for a US-China trade deal and falling expectations for interest rate rises by the Federal Reserve.
US data on Friday showed personal spending in December fell more than expected. The core personal consumption expenditure index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, remained steady on 1.9% growth year-over-year and still below the central bank’s 2% target and despite near 3% annual wages growth.
