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This week Progressive's Jeremy McKeown and Gareth Evans start by talking about the market changing its mind twice, and quite materially. The positive reaction to the US government's reopening was short-lived, as was the delight at NVIDIA's blowout earnings on Wednesday. In both cases, prices were boosted by good news, only to drift - in NVIDIA's case by 8% top-to-bottom in the course of just a day. Markets always move, but these are huge deltas on some very large amounts of capital. Lots of things are overlapping so discerning worries about AI from worries about the economic outlook is almost impossible. Our traditional reminder to keep one eye on Japan, where 10-year bond yields are soaring and the currency dropping...beware the carry trade unwinding with a bump. In the UK, we're all waiting to see which of the many-mooted taxes will be inflicted on us - the chances of a real surprise look pretty small. Progressive client Gear4Music delivered a strong H1 result, perhaps demonstrating the resilience and operational gearing that we've been discussing may be a feature of a large number of UK micro-caps. They have weathered Brexit, Covid, supply chain pressure and now consumer pain - with costs kept lean and strong operational efficiency, any recovery will flow straight to the bottom line - which is exactly what G4M has demonstrated. Next week we have US retail sales and durable goods data, and FOMC members with a number of speeches in the diary. Confusion and contradiction remain, as the US economy sees Wall Street (mainly the Magnificent 7) whose AI and capex-fuelled world is growing rapidly, contrast sharply with Main Street where the average American is feeling real pain. Should interest rates be set to rein in tech-bro exuberance and gently deflate a potential bubble, or to give some cost-of-living relief to the down-trodden masses ?
