Turbulent week ends with Friday flourish

ORLANDO, Florida, March 14 (Reuters) –

Making sense of the forces driving global markets

World markets on Friday ended another choppy week on an upbeat note as investors pushed aside growing concerns over the global trade war and bought back beaten down stocks, although few will be confident a definitive market bottom has been reached yet.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda is very much in place, and markets remain vulnerable to the next escalation in tensions. The lack of any new announcement from Trump on Friday was, for investors, perhaps a classic case of ‘no news is good news’.

Another dose of good news on Friday came from Germany, where Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz secured support from the Greens to revise the country’s debt brake and unleash the biggest fiscal package since 1990, proposals that should deliver a massive boost to German and European growth.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate looks set to pass a stopgap spending bill and avert a partial government shutdown, lifting another cloud hanging over markets.

But the broader horizon is filled with dark, ominous clouds, indicated by some key market moves and economic data on Friday – safe-haven demand propelled gold above $3,000 an ounce for the first time, while U.S. consumer confidence fell to its lowest in nearly two and a half years and longer-term inflation expectations hit their highest since 1993.

This is also reflected in the latest fund flows data from Bank of America – the last week saw the biggest equity outflow this year, and the biggest inflow into Treasuries since August.

Around $3 trillion was wiped off global equity market cap this week, bringing total losses since the February 19 peak to around $7 trillion. Most of that is from the U.S., which still accounts for more than 70% of world market cap.

These are big numbers, but won’t be bothering policymakers too unduly just yet. A renewed wave of selling though, and that calculus might start to change – investors will be scrutinizing the Fed, Bank of Japan and Bank of England policy meetings next week more closely than ever.

I’d love to hear from you, so please reach out to me with comments at . You can also follow me at @ReutersJamie and @reutersjamie.bsky.social.

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This Week’s Key Market Moves

* Gold breaks above $3,000 an ounce for the first time, boosted mostly by safe-haven demand but also Fed rate cut expectations. Gold notches its 10th weekly rise from the last 11.

* World stocks have their worst week of the year, with the MSCI All Country index falling 2%. Friday’s relief rally on Wall Street, however, should bode well for Monday’s open.

* The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have their best day of the year on Friday, both leaping more than 2%. But both register their fourth weekly declines in a row. Momentum still seems tilted to the downside.

* U.S. ‘Big Tech’ dips into bear market territory, with the Roundhill “Magnificent Seven” ETF falling more than 20% from its December peak. Its rebound on Friday cuts weekly losses to 3%.

* U.S. high-yield credit spreads widen to 340 basis points, the widest in six months. It was the second biggest weekly move in two years, but overall spread level is still low given the high degree of macro and market uncertainty.

* Chinese stocks rise as much as 2.4% on Friday to new highs for the year on growing hopes Beijing will announce further measures to boost consumption. Chinese equities are up 8% in the past two months, S&P 500 is down 8% in the last month.

Bank of America’s weekly ‘Flow Show’ note on Friday included a remarkable chart showing something we instinctively know to be true, but still scarcely seems believable – the U.S. economy has grown 50% in nominal terms since the pandemic low in 2020.

This is remarkable in itself, and helps explain why high household, business and federal debt hasn’t been the ticking time-bomb many thought it would be when the Fed began raising interest rates – as a share of GDP, borrowing has not grown much at all, and in many cases, has fallen substantially.

What could move markets on Monday?

* China ‘data dump’ for February that includes: house prices, industrial production, investment, retail sales and unemployment.

* China policymakers news conference on measures to boost consumption

* India wholesale price inflation (February)

* U.S. retail sales (February)

Here are some of the best things I read this week:

1. Central banks slip into the shadows

2. Trump’s confidence-sapping policies echo the 1930s

3. Tesla’s stock defied gravity for years. Is Elon Musk’s EV party over?

4. A stain on Britain: sewage contaminates its waterways and seas

5. As Trump thaws ties, Russia has a new public enemy number one: Britain

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

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(Writing by Jamie McGeever; editing by Diane Craft)