At the close of business on Friday, global equities were higher on the week. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note continued to decline, falling to 4.39% from 4.46% last Friday. The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was little changed at $74.70 while volatility, as measured by the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), inched down to 12.95 from 13.8.

 

CRYPTO NEWS

As you may know, I am reluctant to recommend crypto currency as an alternative investment. This past weekend ECB president Christine Lagarde admitted that her son lost almost all of his investments in crypto assets. She calls crypto assets speculative, worthless and a tool often used by criminals for illicit activity.

Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive of Binance, the largest global cryptocurrency exchange, agreed on Tuesday to step down from his post and plead guilty to money laundering charges brought by the US Department of Justice. The firm agreed to pay fines totaling $4.3 billion, but will be allowed to remain in operation. Binance remains under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and may face additional charges.

 

CANADIAN ECONOMIC NEWS

Canada’s inflation rate fell to 3.1% year over year in October from 3.8% in September. It reached 8.1 percent in June, 2022, which was the highest in nearly four decades. While recent progress has been encouraging, the Bank of Canada doesn’t project inflation will return to its 2 percent target until mid-2025. Some aspects of the CPI, such as groceries and various housing costs, are rising at elevated rates. We continue to expect to see interest rates begin to come down in the second quarter of 2024.

 

US ECONOMIC NEWS

Minutes of the November 1st meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee show that the US Federal Reserve may not need to hike further (though a hike remains a possibility) but all the members of the FOMC agreed rates will need to remain restrictive for some time and that they should proceed cautiously. The minutes showed that data arriving in the coming months would help clarify the extent to which the disinflation process was progressing. After the release, markets marginally lowered the odds of a rate cut in May to about 60 percent. This week, a continued tech stock rally carried the Nasdaq 100 to a twenty-two-month high.

 

EUROPEAN ECONOMIC NEWS

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said Monday that rates in the United Kingdom may need to rise again as food and energy remain major upside price risks.

The UK office of Budget Responsibility sees 2023 growth of 0.6%, an upward revision of its March forecast for a 0.2% decline. However, the 2024 growth forecast was cut to 0.7% from 1.8%. Inflation, which stands at 4.6% currently, is projected to fall to 2.8% at the end of 2024.

 

CHINA, EMERGING MARKETS and JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWS

According to the Financial Times, over three quarters of the foreign money that flowed into China’s stock market in the first seven months of the year has left, with global investors dumping more than $25 billion worth of shares despite Beijing’s efforts to restore confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.

 

.