US consumer confidence slips in March

The US Conference board consumer confidence index for March slipped to 92.9, down from an upwardly revised 100.1 in February and far short of the forecast: 93.6. This marked the lowest reading for the index since 2021, while the expectations measure fell from 74.8 to 65.2, the weakest reading in 12 years, as respondents cited concerns around tariffs and policy uncertainty. Inflation expectations ticked up to 6.2%, the highest reading since April 2023. This will potentially complicate the Federal Reserve’s task going forward, though Jerome Powell had stressed that the hard data was not reflecting what is being seen in surveys so far.

Germany’s IFO business climate survey rose to 86.7 in March, from 85.3 the previous month. This was in line with predictions. The current assessment improved to 85.7, from 85.0, while the expectations measure rose to 87.7, from 85.6 on the February print. The positive surprise follows on from the uptick in the PMI survey released the previous day, underscoring how the outlook for German activity is improving on the back of the planned government spending on defence and infrastructure.

Qatar’s real GDP growth accelerated to 6.1% y/y in Q4 of last year, up from 2.0% the previous quarter. This gave full-year growth of 2.4%, beating our 1.7% forecast on the back of the final quarter outperformance. Non-hydrocarbon growth was 3.4%. In other GCC data, Kuwait saw inflation at 2.5% y/y in February, unchanged from the January print.

Today’s Economic Data and Events

11:00 UK CPI inflation, % y/y, February. Forecast: 3.0%

16:30 US durable goods orders, % m/m, February. Forecast: -1.0%

Fixed Income

• USTs ticked higher on Tuesday amid hopes for less stringent tariff policies. Yields on both the 2yr and the 10yr fell 2bps, to 4.0132% and 4.3133% respectively.

FX

• The dollar paused its rally yesterday after four days of gains for the DXY index, though it was broadly flat against its basket of peer currencies, closing down by less than 0.1%.
• GBP closed up 0.2% against the dollar to 1.2944 while EUR dropped 0.1% to 1.0791. JPY strengthened by 0.5% to 149.91.

Equities

• US stocks had a fairly volatile day on Tuesday but ended the session up even as the Conference board index result pared gains later in the day. The Dow Jones closed up marginally while the S&P 500 added 0.2% and the NASDAQ gained 0.5% as tech stocks rallied.
• There were more robust gains in Europe where the FTSE 100 closed up 0.3% while the CAC and the DAX both ended the day 1.1% higher.
• Locally, the DFM closed all but flat while the ADX slipped 0.3%. Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul closed 0.6% lower while the Borsa Istanbul 100 added 4.5%.

Commodities

• Oil markets were muted yesterday with Brent crude closing flat at USD 73.0/b while WTI fell 0.2% to USD 69.0/b.
• Both benchmarks are heading higher in early trading this morning following the publication of weekly API report which signalled a 4.6mn bbl drop in US crude stocks last week.