A ‘good news is bad news’ environment for markets

This monthly commentary gives a round-up of global markets and trends.

In this edition:

• It’s been a tough market for fixed income assets, with UK, US and eurozone government bonds seeing record price declines
• The weakness in the bond market has also hurt the equity market - the valuations of rate-sensitive stocks have dragged down the broader equity market
• For bond and equity markets to stabilise, there needs to be a sufficient slowing in the US labour market to encourage the Fed to ease back on its hawkish monetary policy stance
• Higher yields on US government bonds are driving up the value of the dollar, pushing some central banks to intervene in foreign exchange markets