UK Stock-Market

• The UK stock-market was higher last week.
• The Bank of England announced its latest monetary policy decision leaving interest rates and its bond buying program unchanged as expected but the central bank raised its outlook for the economy, anticipating the best year for UK growth since the second world war. European shares also had a good week with earnings reports generally better-than-expected.
• Strong economic data from China also helped with exports from China rising more than expected in April.
• Our Breadth indicator stayed positive and our Momentum Indicator, ticked higher again.

UK Market 7th May 2021
US Stock-Market

• The US stock-market was higher last week but the technology sector under-performed with investors favouring Value stocks once again.
• On Tuesday, markets were not impressed with comments from Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary, who said interest rates will have to rise at some point, although she later said this was not a forecast.
• The big event of the week was the US jobs report for April released on Friday. This is a widely watched indicator of economic recovery and economists had anticipated the addition of 1 million new jobs. As it turned out their expectations were massively off the mark with only 266,000 net non-farm payrolls being added. Treasury yields fell and stock index futures rose strongly in the anticipation that the Fed would be less inclined to raise rates and cut stimulus after the report.
• 80% of companies in the S&P 500 have now reported first-quarter earnings which most beating analysts forecasts.
• Our Breadth indicator stayed positive and our Momentum Indicator ticked higher.

US Market 7th May 2021
The Big Picture 7th May 2021
Market Sentiment 7th May 2021
U.S. Risk Barometer 7th May 2021
Europe Risk Barometer 7th May 2021
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