In Online Stock Trading, world shares have hovered near one-month highs.

This is due to an uptick in hopes that the US Federal Reserve might cut US interest rates as soon as this year, a sentiment echoed in the chat rooms of online stock trading forums.

Online Stock Trading: Market opportunities

A lower yen was countered by a higher euro, keeping the dollar steady.

It’s another day of watching to see what’s happening for online stock traders.

The release of a much weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report and data showing the slowest growth in nearly two years triggered a volte-face in expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts, which have dominated trading discussions on the LSEG’s rate probability app, and in online stock trading forums.

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Analysts generally expect the Fed to raise rates by another 50 basis points in its July meeting, which is reflected in the LSEG’s rate probability app, which shows traders pricing in 45 basis points of rate cuts by the end of 2024, with the first cut in September.

Yields on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes fell to almost a one-month low, with Internet stock trading boards buzzing.

Online Stock Trading: US Dollar Index Traders

The dollar index, a measurement of the US currency against six peers, was about 1.3% lower than its nearly six-month high in early May — a key factor for traders in online stock trading.

The renewed pickup in expectations of lower interest rates has boosted the demand for stocks and other risky assets, as MSCI’s global stock gauge jumped to its highest since April 10, 0.40% though it has now retreated somewhat.

The pan-regional STOXX 600 index in Europe also jumped to a one-month high, with discussion on online stock trading platforms ramping up.

Online stock trading platforms are also tracking the rise in Treasury yields, as traders are set to digest $125 billion in new Treasury supply this week, just after last week’s strong jobs report and Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments put the market on a rampage.

Online stock trading strategies are equally dependent on macroeconomic data.

In the end, the prospect of lower rates is affecting the dollar, and dictating strategy in online stock trading, as traders prepare for the next moves in the global arena.

Online Stock Trading: Wall Street Rally

Wall Street enjoyed a little more of its recent rally on Tuesday as expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut rates this year helped US stock indexes to inch forward, while a surge in the price of Tesla and other stocks in engaging online chatter offered support as well.

Walt Disney’s 8.4% drop in early trading immediately following the release of quarterly results that showed profit from streaming rose but box office and network TV declined tempered broader gains.

In spite of Disney’s number, however, the major US indexes closed at their best levels in more than three weeks.

Last week’s disappointing labour report fuelled online stock trading hopes that the Fed would pivot to easier policy this year.

Stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings reports have also encouraged online stock trading participants who were spooked earlier this year that inflation and a strong economy would convince the Fed to maintain high interest rates for longer.

Online Stock Trading: Interest Rates in Focus

At present – and this can be seen on LSEG’s interest rate probabilities app, as well as in online stock trading – traders seem sure that, by year-end 2024, the Fed will have cut by 46 basis points (half a percentage point). The first cut is pegged for September, with another expected in December.

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For its part, the Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari noted that ‘a hot housing market and/or delays hitting our 2% inflation targets might mean monetary policy is tighter than we think’.

On this dark Tuesday, 10 out of 11 sectors of the S&P 500 climbed up during online stock trading sessions.

The most powerful increase was consumer staples, with 9.34%.

At 09:46 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 60.27 points (0.16%), the S&P 500 increased 8.89 points (0.17%), and the Nasdaq Composite rose 20.85 points (0.13%).

On the strength of reports that a bit more than four-fifths of the S P500 firms stand to have beaten earnings projections for the March quarter, the markets have largely shrugged off what might have been bad news on the world’s crude exports or the US Federal Reserve’s interest-rate outlook.

Yes, one of this week’s biggest losers – nudging down Nvidia shares by 1.1%—found itself in the dumps thanks to news about Apple’s reported effort to build its own AI data centre chip, as Bloomberg News reported.

Another loser – down 2.3% – was Tesla, which saw the latest signs of weaknesses in China’s market for electric vehicles.

Still, in both the New York or NASDAQ exchanges, every ticker specifying an advancing issue beat out the number saying that shares were falling.

As if to suggest that the online posturing by stock traders is now largely upbeat, almost every last NASDAQ ‘adv’ had the slimmest edge it possibly could over the bearish decliners.

Major UK institutional shareholders have written to the board of the London Stock Exchange Group to warn them not to water down listing rule and company governance standards to attract new business, in reply to a letter from the chair of the group.

LAPFF, the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, which represents £350 billion ($441.74 billion) of UK local authority pensions, said it was alarmed by actions taken under the leadership of Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange plc and chair of the Capital Markets Industry Taskforce (CMIT).

The CMIT has refused to push for stronger corporate governance rules in the UK, pushing instead for the kind of reforms that were ultimately scrapped in order to make the country more competitive.

It has also pushed for higher CEO pay, in order to attract ‘talent’ to global HQs.

London Stock Exchange plc’s parent company LSEG is set to reward its CEO David Schwimmer with up to double his pay in 2023.

The Financial Conduct Authority is due to publish its radical rewrite of listing rules in the next few weeks LAPFF chair Doug McMurdo wrote to Don Robert, chair of the LSE Group, to say that CMIT’s say was ‘not balanced’ between asset owners and asset managers ‘which are not creditible in the eyes of pension funds for whom this [governance] matters most’.

The letter went on to say that ‘pension funds have expressed concerns that the proposed changes reflect the most significant setback to shareholder rights for years as was recently highlighted by Railpen and other UK pension schemes looking after £300 billion of UK members’ money.

It’s pretty obvious what the interests of investors in the online world of stock-trading are in the listing reforms.

Companies as diverse as CRH and Flutter Entertainment have de-listed in London and re-listed in New York, as has the chip-design company ARM which could have listed in London but didn’t, despite an effort from the UK government.

‘Good stewardship gives protection to the investor, and to the UK economy,’ McMurdo said. He pointed out that even larger companies like Shell and Unilever opted to consolidate their dual listings in the UK and that several companies went bankrupt because poor auditing had driven them out of the public markets.

The LAPFF’s 87 members own enough shares between them to be the LSE Group’s 15th-biggest investor.

McMurdo thus warned that reducing listing and governance standards would ‘damage the exchange’s reputation, and harm the UK’s standing as a favoured market for online stock trading investors.

It is time for LSEG to publish any evidence linking strict listing rules to fewer listings, or to less investment.’

UK shares rallied to an all-time high on Tuesday as a torrid start to the year in the stock market continued, with Shell shares hitting a record high and fueling the rise in the FTSE 100 after the oil major announced it was putting some Malaysian assets up for sale.

BP shares, however, slipped after it missed the earnings consensus.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index hit a record of 8,311.02 points after climbing 1.1% to 8,304.28, after rising in 10 of the past 13 sessions.

Shell (SHEL.L) gained 1.7% on news that it is in talks to sell its Malaysian petrol station business to state-controlled Saudi Aramco, a day after it said it was pulling out of South Africa’s downstream business.

Shares were boosted by Shell’s push to ‘decarbonise its portfolio and invest in more predictable, cash-generative revenue streams’, according to Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at the investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown.

Conversely, BP (BP.L) tumbled 0.2% after coming in short of earnings expectations on account of low oil and gas prices and the closure of a US refinery.

But it left its share buyback intact.

Precious metal miners rose 2.1%, as demand for safe-haven assets swelled with the volatile ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza. In the bulletin boards of those who trade online stocks, this has kindled a new appetite for gold and other precious metals.

British retail spending data from April pointed to softening, with investors now looking ahead to this week’s Bank of England (BoE) interest rate decision.

‘We expect the BoE to leave rates alone this time around, but the drop in retail sales signals demand is being hit by higher borrowing costs,’ said Streeter.

Bond yields have been falling as investors bet on two BoE rate cuts this year, with the first likely in August.

Two-year and ten-year yields hit their lowest in more than three weeks.

The mid-cap FTSE 250 index (.FTMC) was up 1% at its highest since late July last year, as were the FTSE 100 (.FTSE), which were also up 1%, making for a good day for online stock trading.

European shares touched a more than a month high on Tuesday on robust corporate earnings confirmation from UBS and UniCredit, and prospects of a central bank interest rate cut, after a similarly positive close for Wall Street on Monday.

The pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX) rose 0.4% in early deals, after closing at a one-week peak on Monday.

Stronger-than-expected corporate earnings reports from UBS, the largest Swiss bank, and Italy’s UniCredit, as well as other shares in the last month are driven by heightened expectations that both the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank may cut interest rates this year.

‘In Europe and the UK, the ECB and BoE are likely to go into cuts regardless of what the Fed does,’ said Mohit Kumar, Jefferies’ chief economist for Europe.

The ECB has suggested that a cut could come in June, but even so, the projections for 2024 growth in the eurozone and the UK could be as low as 0.5%, said Kumar.

Investors are watching to see what happens with retail sales data in the eurozone following good growth in Germany’s exports last month and the fact that that figure was partially offset by unexpectedly weak industrial orders.

Out in front of the sector, however, UBS (UBSG.S) added 8% on the back of quarterly profits that tripled estimates, boosting the index of financial services (.SXFP) 2.2% to a three-week high, with UniCredit (CRDI.MI) adding 3.1% to the Italian banking sector after beating profit forecasts and raising its guidance on investor rewards.

Higher. Germany’s Zalando (ZALG.DE) lifted the retail sub-index (.SXRP) by 1.3% after its first-quarter results bested expectations. Chipmaker Infineon (IFXGn.DE) rose 7.1%after beating sales expectations, even as it cut its full-year guidance.

stocks of spirits also gained ground, with Remy Cointreau (RCOP.PA) up 6.1% and Pernod Ricard (PERP.PA) rising 2.6% on the back of upbeat comments from China’s president about resolving a trade dispute over French cognac.

But not all the sectors joined in, with German software maker TeamViewer (TMV.DE) falling 8.6% after the company missed targets for the last quarter, while Danish medical-products maker Coloplast (COLOb.CO) lost 5.1% as earnings were also weaker than forecast.

Then Siemens Healthineers (SHLG.DE) was down 4.6% after having missed expectations for quarterly revenue growth, while Fresenius Medical Care (FMEG.DE) lost 6.5% after the company only re-confirmed its profit outlook, despite beating on earnings.

At the same time, the UK’s benchmark FTSE 100 (.FTSE) broke its record high, rising 0.9%, as Shell climbed 1.5% after saying it planned to sell its Malaysian petrol station business.

Robust corporate earnings have also stoked enthusiasm for trading online the world’s listed shares.

Foreign outflows were moderate in some major Asian markets last month as US Treasury yields crept up on expectations that the Federal Reserve might keep interest rates high to tame inflation for longer.

Stock exchange data showed that foreign investors took a net $2.54 billion out of regional equities in April, the largest monthly net outflow since November 2023 from Taiwan to India, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea.

These outflows were much lower than the net foreign inflows of around $18.57 billion registered in the first quarter.

Slicing down the regional outflows, port dispatches for Taiwan registered $2.23 billion of net foreign sale, marking the first reversal of consecutive inflows in five months.

Likewise, new-founded foreign appetite for Indonesian commodities evaporated in July, leading to a $1.14bn in net outflows, as well as India ($1.04 bn) and Vietnam ($190 mn).

The two countries to entice net foreign inflows were South Korea ($1.79 bn) and the Philippines ($162 mn).

Meanwhile, Jason Lui, the head of APAC equity and derivatives strategy at BNP Paribas notes that ‘the sector remains leveraged to the semiconductor investment theme globally, as well as the technology investment theme in general, and – more specifically – the AI semiconductor sub-sector.

We see the sector as still in the cyclical recovery phase for the business cycle for memory pricing.