USA T-bond yields, S&P 500 Futures portray pre-Inflation anxiety

Global markets began to slow on Wednesday as key US inflation cautious sentiment probed earlier optimism fueled by US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The risk appetite also defies concerns about the coronavirus with links to South Africa, specifically Omicron, as well as CPI/PPI data from China, not to mention the World Bank’s 2022 economic forecast.

While portraying the mood, 10-year US Treasury yields remained under pressure around 1.741% as 2-year yields fell for the second day in a row, down 1.2 basis points (bps). closest near 0.887. In addition, the future S & P 500 is struggling to keep up with Wall Street’s profits, unchanging about 4,705 at the press time.

Two key measures of China’s inflation eased December and tested already sluggish markets later this year. That said, the overall Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell below 1.8% forecast and 2.3% ahead of 1.5% year-on-year, while last month’s index also fell. down 0.3% from +0.2% expected and +0.4% from previous readings. In addition, ex-factory inflation, production price index (PPI), also dropped below 11.1% expected and 12.9% earlier, to 10 3% compared to the same period last year for December.

On the other hand, a new record of daily fallopian tube infections in Australia and an announcement of a public health emergency in Washington DC are also probing risk takers. In addition, the increase in virus cases in China, recently 166 cases compared to 110 cases a day earlier, is adding to commercial filters.

Elsewhere, negative economic forecasts from the World Bank (WB) also challenged previous market optimism. The World Bank cited the coronavirus issue as lowering its global GDP expectations for 2022 to 4.1% from 4.3% previously estimated. The World Bank also cut its economic forecasts for the United States and China, by 0.5% to 3.7%, and 0.3% to 5.1%, respectively, for 2022.

It should be noted that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee could be seen as the main positive factor in the good market performance on Tuesday. That said, Fed’s Powell has shown he is willing to raise rates, but remains cautious about normalizing the balance sheet. However, the Fed boss also expects the supply slump to ease somewhat and that the economic impact of the Omicron variant will be short-lived. Therefore, US CPI for December today, at 7.0% yoy vs. 6.8% previously, will be an important number to watch as higher inflation could refresh the risk-on mood.