Many investors were watching the US central bank – the Federal Reserve – and the minutes of the interest rate meeting held three weeks ago, where the main interest rate remained unchanged.
Oddmun Berg, chief economist at DNB Markets, believes there is still broad agreement in the committee that further tightening is needed, which means a fresh hike is likely to come in July.
“Perhaps I’m not the only one who has a hard time understanding why they would choose to wait, if everyone agrees that a rate hike should be made,” he wrote in a morning report.
The report contributed to US stock markets closing lower on Wednesday, and Asia – especially the Hong Kong Stock Exchange – fell sharply in trading Thursday.
US futures contracts are trading Thursday morning down in the range of 0.4-0.5 percent. At the same time, oil prices are slightly lower than when the Oslo Poor’s closed on Wednesday.
Nordent analyst Roger Berntsen thinks Oslo Borse will open down 0.3 percent, or in the range of negative 0.8 percent to plus 0.2 percent.
Asia fall
In China, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.5 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 3.1 percent, and South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.7 percent.
The stock market decline followed the publication of the minutes of the US central bank’s (Fed) interest rate meeting on 13-14. June. Here it appears that many members wanted to raise the interest rate.
Members who wanted interest rates to increase pointed to the “extremely tight” labor market, that the pace of economic activity was higher than expected and that there were few indications that inflation was on its way down towards the 2 percent target.
According to CNBC Members generally agreed that the pause in interest rate hikes allowed more time to process additional information and its impact on monetary policy.
This week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will visit China to discuss macroeconomic challenges, as I’ve written elsewhere CNBC.
Read Asia’s full explanation here.
oil price
Oil prices rose during the afternoon and evening on Wednesday, but have eased somewhat since then. Since midnight, the price of a barrel of North Sea oil has fallen 0.4% to $76.4 a barrel. barrel.
This is down about 0.1 USD since the closing time on the Oslo Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, the price of a barrel of US Light Oil (WTI) fell 0.2 percent to $71.2 a barrel.
This time last year, oil was trading at over $110 a barrel. barrel. Hedge fund manager Tor Svelland says the big funds have taken extremely short positions.
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