investingLive Americas market news wrap: Fed’s Williams to the rescue

Markets:

• S&P 500 up 1.0%
• Gold down $13 to $4060
• WTI crude oil down $1.03 to $57.97
• US 10-year yields down 3.9 bps to 4.065%
• Bitcoin down 2.6% to $84,926
• JPY leads, CHF lags

The mood darkened deeper early on Friday with stock futures sliding and bitcoin falling as low as $80,555. The turnaround initially came on comments from NY Fed President Williams, who indicated he was inclined to support a rate cut again in December. Williams is at the core of the Fed and isn’t likely to go go against Powell so the thinking was that this was a deliberate dovish message and market pricing from about a 30% chance of a cut to 60%. The Fed blackout starts at midnight next Friday so it’s going to be an interesting week, including ADP employment.

Despite that shift, the optimism didn’t initially last. Stock markets gave back early gains and fell into negative territory, though it was extremely choppy.

The second lift came when the White House floated selling Nvidia chips to China once again. That added some big bids to equities and helped Nvidia pare losses. At one point, stocks were significantly higher than the close but there was some selling in the final two hours, likely in part to skepticism about this report and lingering worries about an AI bubble. That tees up another lively week next week.

In FX, the message continues to be far less worry about the economy. Reports from The Gap and Ross Stores included favorable commentary on consumers and both shares rose 8% to be among the leaders. That continues the message from WMT earnings a day earlier. On net, the moves in FX were mostly unnotable this week with some mild EUR weakness and USD strength.

The exception is the yen, which continued to be beaten up this week and hit a record low against the euro and a long-term low vs the pound. USD/JPY intervention talk has begun and a BOJ official today made some hawkish comments. That helped to reverse the rally today and the pair fell a full cent.

After being a market darling for many weeks, gold continues to consolidate around $4100 but it’s been volatile within its range. On the more-bearish side, oil significantly slackened as Trump pushes a new peace plan for Ukraine with a ‘deadline’ for next Thursday.

Have a great weekend. I will be in London at the Finance Magnates London Summit next week. Stop in and say high if you’re in the neighbourhood.