G-20, ECB rate decision, and Friday’s Employment Report
Posted by themarketanalyst on April 2, 2009
As the week winds down, the markets could be faced with an overwhelming amount of data to digest. This could lead to signficant volatility and sudden price swings. However, there is not the same level of uncertainty as in recent months. From this perspective and following the recent three-week stock market rally from the lows, there could be a bias towards the upside. The level of uncertainty is not as high because we are starting see more concrete expectations for the following event risks.
Investors are looking for specific, coordinated measures to come out of the G-20 meeting. However, investors are also aware that no major agreements are likely to come out of the meeting and that at most we could probably hope for some general framework. Ideally, the markets want some decisions on new regulation of the financial markets.
The market is expecting for a 50 bp rate cut from the ECB. This will likely happen as the Euro Zone is faced with serious economic problems. But lot’s of attention will be on the Trichet statements. Important announcements could be made and investors will be eager to know if the central bank will purchase private debt. Again, this is not so much expectation as it is hope for additional catalysts.
Therefore, both the G-20 meeting and the ECB rate decision have potential to surprise to the positive side for stock markets. It is more likely for these events NOT to be short of expectations. If they are, stocks could turn dramatically to the downside.
Same goes for the Employment Report as investors already have low expectations for employment figures. However, if we use Wednesday’s ADP report as a leading indicator we could be in for a negative surprise. The ADP report was much worse than expected in terms of job destruction.
As we could see, the second quarter is off to a busy start, not to mention that the earnings season will start next week. Corporate earnings will probably be as important as ever (since the crisis started) for signals of any indication that a recovery is in the works.
