Weekly Market Analysis 26/02/2024

Last week, on the US side, the minutes of the Central Bank's (Fed) meeting dated January 30-31, 2024, the statements from Fed officials after the meeting, and the inflation data in the Euro Zone were followed in global markets last week. In the Fed meeting minutes, most officials noted the risks of rapid interest rate cuts, but said they wanted to see more concrete evidence that inflation had reached target levels. “I think there's plenty of time for us to gain more confidence about where the economy is going,” Fed Board Member Michelle Bowman said. "I think at some point it will be time to start the process of lowering rates, but given the uncertainty in the data, I'm not sure about that, so definitely not now." said. Fed Board Member Christopher Waller said he needs to see more evidence that inflation is cooling. Fed Vice Chairman Philip Jefferson and Governor Lisa Cook said they were optimistic that inflation was still slowing despite January's decline, but made clear they wanted more evidence that inflation was returning to the 2% target before lowering borrowing costs. In the Eurozone, the consumer price index decreased by 0.4% on a monthly basis in January, while annual inflation was 2.8%. Although there was a mixed trend in global markets throughout the week, we observed an upward trend in the ounce of gold with the statements from the Fed.