With month-end and quarter-end out of the way, we can finally try to settle back into more familiar trading narratives but the long weekend coming up in US may make for a bit of a tougher time to grasp flows today.
Nonetheless, equities are picking up from where they left off in 1H 2022 as US futures are dragged lower once again so far on the day. S&P 500 futures are down 40 points or 1.1% currently, with Nasdaq futures down 1.2% and Dow futures also down 1.0%.
The half-yearly performance for the cash market has been rather dire with the S&P 500 seeing its worst first six months since 1970 while the Nasdaq experienced its worst first half to the year ever.
And that’s not even the worst part. It is that the storm clouds are still hanging over markets and amid the ongoing combination of more persistently high inflation and central banks tightening, the economic outlook remains rather dire. It’s tough to pick at comforting points for markets at this stage.