Macro

The cost of insuring against US tech defaults has hit record levels in the latest sign of credit stress building in the AI trade, especially for data centres dependent on future revenue. ...

Australia's unemployment rate remained at 4.7% in September. Employment fell by 39,300 and the number of officially unemployed people rose by 8,900. The participation rate eased to 66.8% from 67%, leaving the September-quarter average at 4.63%, above the Reserve Bank's 4.5% forecast for the fourth quarter. Trend measures were steadier, with unemployment at 4.6%, participation at 66.9% and hours worked unchanged.

Unemployment lifted in September, before the Reserve Bank’s most recent rate hike, ABS figures show.

Australia's unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 4.7 per cent in September, above the 4.6 per cent economists had forecast and the highest reading since October 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said. Nearly 40,000 Australians fell out of work, and the ABS revised August's rate up to 4.7 per cent. Markets are watching how the figures affect the Reserve Bank of Australia's rate path.

US inflation data came in above expectations, briefly reviving market expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this month. The dollar index climbed as high as 102.94 during the session, an 18-month high. Investors then digested the data, and expectations shifted back to a patient Fed. The dollar's gains narrowed but it still ended higher, closing at 102.53.

U.S. September CPI rose 3.7% year over year, above the 3.6% expected. The monthly reading climbed 0.6%, with more than half of the increase driven by gasoline prices. The hotter-than-expected inflation data pushed the probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike at its October meeting to almost 35%, touching 49% at one point during the session. All three major U.S. indexes fell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.09%, the S&P 500 down 1.10% and the Nasdaq Composite plunging 1.88% as AI-related stocks weighed on the tech-heavy index.

Hotter-than-expected inflation data sent the Nasdaq to a sharply lower close on Wednesday, with worries about more interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve pummeling shares of Oracle, CoreWeave...

US inflation for September came in above expectations, deepening fears that the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates, and Wall Street stocks fell sharply on Wednesday. The S&P 500 dropped 1.35%, with rate-sensitive AI names leading the decline as Oracle fell 7.3%, CoreWeave plunged 15% and Nebius lost 10%. Dell shed 12% and Hewlett Packard Enterprise 7.6% after brokerages cut their ratings. Bank shares also came under pressure, with Bank of America down 5.8% and Morgan Stanley off 3.8%.

Consumer prices in the US came in higher than expected in September, pushing Bitcoin down by roughly $1,000 to $82,800 and stoking fears that the Federal Reserve may consider hiking interest rates once again at its upcoming monetary policy meeting in late October. The figures that rattled the markets According to the Bureau of Labor. . .