Published
2nd April 2024
Categories
Perspective News, The Cambridge Weekly
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The Cambridge Weekly –2nd April 2024
Everyone is an optimist now
For the UK and Europe, last Thursday was the last working day of the first quarter. We will bring you a more detailed round up of asset market performance for March (and the quarter) in the next Cambridge Weekly.
Asset price volatility continues to decrease, much like it has done across the quarter, so we can be reasonably sure that Q1 2024 will have finished strongly for equity markets across the world. Last week had been another reasonable one, with the UK markets playing a bit of catch-up.
Inflation volatility creating inflation?
Central bankers strongly hinted a couple of weeks ago that the inflation beast has been slain. The Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve (Fed) kept interest rates steady in their most recent meetings, but both effectively confirmed that cuts are coming later this year. The European Central Bank (ECB) was a little more cautious – highlighting sticky services inflation – but weak European business sentiment and a surprise Swiss rate cut suggested that caution might be overdone.
