11 September 2017
Bassanese Bites: Battening Down – Week beginning: 11 September 2017
Concerns over North Korea and storms battering America’s south were enough to see risk aversion creep back into global markets last week, with the S&P 500 Index shedding 0.6%. So far at least, however, global equities are at worst only broadly consolidating just below recent highs. The $US and US 10-year bond yields also weakened but, unlike equities, both broke below important recent support levels last week, affirming current downtrends remain in place. Reflecting its safe-haven status, gold bounced a further 1.6%
After appearing to “blink” a few weeks ago, the resumption of North Korean missile and bomb tests last weekend unnerved markets, with no side as yet showing signs of wanting to back down. Just what US President Trump can and will do (apart from waging a twitter war) remains to be seen. While the US would likely easily and quickly win a conventional “war”, this might not avoid immediate retaliatory devastation of South Korea or far worse.
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