Business

WGC: 2018 Set To Be A Positive Year For Price of Gold and Investors

Shares of Stockholm-based Hennes & Mauritz, better known as H&M, the world’s second largest clothing retailer after Inditex (owner of Zara), crashed 14.8% after reporting an unexpected drop in fiscal 4Q 2017 sales. Sales missed both consensus and company estimates with the resulting fall in H&M’s share price was the steepest intra-day decline since 11 September, 2011. 

Source: FT.

U.S. equity index futures point to a higher open, having rebounded some 10 points off session lows with the VIX stuck on the edge between single and double digits, while European and Asian shares decline as investors assess central banks’ shift toward tighter monetary policy and concern over tax overhaul ahead of final plan. 

It has been a groggy end to what is still set to be a third week of gains for MSCI’s global stock index following more upbeat data and signs that central banks including the Federal Reserve will keep treading carefully with interest rate hikes.

Before you shut down that terminal for the year, hoping that the year is - mercifully - finally over, you may want to consider that according to former Lehman trader and current Bloomberg macro commentator Mark Cudmore, the Christmas pain trade is about to be unveiled, and it will be especially painful for all those short Treasurys. As Cudmore warns, with ten-years stuck in a 2.3%-2.43% range for the past seven weeks, "the arguments are adding up for a violent downside break during the weeks ahead."

Even though Sweden’s property bubble is not the longest running (that accolade goes to Australia at 55 years), it is probably the world’s biggest with prices up roughly 6-fold since starting its meteoric rise in 1995.

Of course, as we noted last month when the SEB's housing price indicator, which measures the difference between those who believe prices will rise and those who expect them to drop, took its first substantial tumble, the era of the steadily inflating housing bubble in Stockholm may finally have come to an end.