Japan’s inflation slows, consumer prices rise 2.5% in April
Inflation in Japan Inflation fell slightly to 2.5% in April, down from 2.7% in March, marking the second consecutive month that inflation slowed.
Core inflation, excluding fresh food prices, also slowed to 2.2% from 2.6%, in line with expectations.
The so-called “core-core” inflation rate, which excludes fresh food and energy prices, that the Bank of Japan considers when setting monetary policy fell sharply in April, to 2.4% from 2.9% the previous month.
— Lim Hui Jie
CNBC Pro: CIO shares Nvidia’s alternative to monetizing on AI topic: ‘There’s another way to play’
Nvidia Delivered again, and the results prove it shows no signs of slowing down.
Nancy Tengler of Laffer Tengler Investments said the chipmaker’s shares rose in after-hours trading, but she expected gains given the “blowout earnings.”
“I think a lot of it has been priced in and now you’re going to see it trickle down to other players in this space,” the chief investment officer said Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
“We thought there was another way to play this,” she said.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Weizhen Tan
Market pricing currently points to only one rate cut this year
Traders once again lowered their expectations for the number of rate cuts this year and pushed the prospect of a first rate cut to later.
Traders in the federal funds futures market cut their forecasts for 2024 to just one rate cut, a day after minutes from the last Federal Reserve meeting confirmed that policymakers were worried about inflation and in no rush to cut interest rates. Statistics, close to 58% CME Group’s FedWatch tool. Earlier this week, the market was looking for two price cuts.
Meanwhile, the first decline is not expected until at least September, and more likely November. At the beginning of the year, traders expected at least six rate cuts starting in March. On Thursday afternoon, the probability of a rate cut in September fell to 51%.
——Jeff Cox
Geopolitical concerns will put more pressure on markets
SimCorp said that as the first-quarter earnings season ends, investors will turn more attention to geopolitical concerns in the months leading up to the next round of earnings.
“The Fed has made it very clear that they’re not going to cut rates, so there’s not going to be a ‘will they cut rates’ (scenario) that has everybody on edge. We’re going to start to see a shift towards some of the geopolitical issues, whether Is it the election or are there two ongoing wars,” said Melissa Brown, managing director of Applied Research.
Brown noted that while events such as the US and UK elections do not necessarily have an economic impact, they do increase uncertainty.
“People may move from saying ‘I’ll buy now’ to ‘Look, I’ll wait and see the results before I decide to put more money into the market,'” Brown said.
— Kim Ha Kyung
Artificial intelligence, semiconductor stocks rise after Nvidia’s strong outlook
About The Author
