An investor-friendly Budget against a favourable global backdrop
There were more jitters on global markets last week as investors tried to price in the pace of interest rate increases, but most indices ended the week in positive territory. Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s January monetary policy meeting – released with a three-week lag – show that the participants are currently comfortable with the US inflation outlook, but increasingly think US growth will surprise on the upside. The fear of many investors is that this would lead to interest rates rising faster than currently expected. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury, the global benchmark, has almost doubled from 1.6% in mid-2016 to close to 3% last week. Rising yields do not just imply higher borrowing costs for companies and governments, but also potentially make shares relatively less attractive, hence the renewed volatility on equity markets.