Another January?

Os ativos de risco estão operando próximos a estabilidade, após uma segunda-feira em que os mercados mostraram recuperação. O destaque desta manhã está por conta de um leve movimento de fortalecimento do USD no mundo. Na agenda do dia, teremos o Consumer Confidence nos EUA. No Brasil, a agenda reserva o IGP-M e taxa de desemprego.

Na ausência de notícias ou movimentos relevantes no cenário, reproduzo abaixo a visão do estrategista de moedas do Morgan Stanley, casa que tem acertado bastante cenário ao longo dos últimos meses:

Risk markets and the Fed. Taking a pre-emptive monetary tightening stance when profits are under downward pressure will not bode well for risk appetite. So far, equity markets have held up and financials have rallied in anticipation of higher interest rates. This behaviour should not surprise as a pre-Fed equity market downward correction may cause the Fed to hold off any scheduled rate hike. Hence, risk markets may enjoy the ‘Fed put’ for a couple of more weeks, but the danger for risk markets may emerge once the Fed has hiked rates and participants view this rate hike as a mistake. A post rate hike data weakness may be unlikely to be tolerated by equity markets. We think the EUR should outperform when risk assets have sold off.

Another January? The 13% January S&P 500 decline came on the back of the Fed hiking rates in December and seeing global economic indicators starting the year on a weak footing. A similar constellation may now be at work. Following hawkish Fed communication, inflation expectations have fallen globally. Within a world of low investment returns and high debt, declining inflation expectations tend to increase the pace of balance sheet restructuring. This morning a large Korean Shipping company saw its creditor banks removing their support for the company, suggesting that these forces are at work. Supporting this view has been the general sluggishness of global manufacturing PMI’s. We should pay particular attention to China's PMI (due Thursday). The 8% decline in the RMB since August 2015 suggests that China's PMI should have been holding up a bit better. However this has not been the case even with the weak currency, representing a point of concern.