🎲 It’s fear time🧸

The equity market wobbled on Tuesday, clouded by a renewed fear of the possible recession, which led Wall Street to extend losses. Fear deepens as JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon cautioned the possibility of a mild slowdown despite consumers in good financial condition. 

As the interest rate continues to rise, investors are trying to determine the lag time of its impact and the degree of damage in restricting economic demand. As a result, major indices dived solidly, with Pika World’s favourite Russell most impacted in a recession mood. 

🎢Bond market re-surface worry💣

Pika World is seeing bond yields inching higher as it hit 4.358%, above the 4.2% where it was just before the job report on Friday. It is not a far cry from the multi-year high of 4.7%. It is a reflection of the cliff level of policy uncertainty ahead. 

Macro trends continued to be the hurdles. We have the Fed policy, the Ukraine war and China’s covid policy, although the last component appears to be brighter daily. We also observed the S&P 500 unable to close above 4080 decisively as it hit resistance and sellers hitting the indices downward. 

💎Cut, Cut, Cut, it’s time to get lean🔫

Staying lean and fit is everyone’s dream. But it could be a nightmare for employees at Morgan Stanley as the company announced trimming down some fats of its employment size by 2% of its global workforce size.

It comes at a challenging time for banks, even for Pika World’s favourite Bank of America. We are seeing business activity falling as new merger deals weaken. The same applies to new stock issuance, which is lucrative bank fees. Hence, the investment banking business will likely contribute to a giant vacuum for the bank in the next earnings season. 

📮What’s on the menu today?📖

At 9.30 pm, we will have the Unit Labor Cost for QoQ, which is expected to moderate to 3.1% from 3.5%. 

It is 7 December, Wednesday, at 9.05 am in Singapore and 8.05 pm in New York. Pika World wishes everyone a profitable trading week!