Weekly Market Update (Apr 12, 2026)
HIGHLIGHTS
Global equities were on track to have the highest weekly gain this year due to the de-escalation of Iran conflict. Oil prices dropped sharply.
- Ceasefire: Despite ceasefire agreement, fighting in Middle East did not stop. Markets are waiting for the weekend talks and will see what will yield and whether the 2-week ceasefire will hold.
- China: The higher oil prices drove up the PPI, while the pass-through to CPI is still not obvious. Downstream pricing power continues to stay weak, keeping consumers' PPI and CPI at a low level. It leaves room for policy easing.
- Currency: Recent events have negative impact for USD's global role over the long run. Before the conflict, US policy uncertainty had already been weakening the dollar over the last year. Also, a small portion of oil exports is slowly changing to RMB instead of USD, leading shift in reserves from USD to RMB.
MARKETS
| Nasdaq | 22,902.90 | +4.68% |
| S&P 500 | 6,816.89 | +3.56% |
| Dow | 47,916.57 | +3.04% |
| 10-Year | 4.32% | +1bps |
| Brent | 95.20 | -12.70% |
| DXY | 98.70 | -1.49% |
*Data as of market close. 5-day change ending on Friday.
VIEW FROM THE STREET
Equity
UBS: Q1 tech earnings will kickstart in the coming week. Markets expect the earnings to beat expectations, driven by tight chip supply and strong AI demand.
Standard Chartered: Earnings season is a good time to revisit US corporate health. Tech firms remain the focus. Monetisation of AI is expected to accelerate, and there is a sharp spike in GPU hourly pricing.
Fixed Income
Goldman Sachs: In US, we believe the medium-term risks continue to skew towards lower terminal rate pricing. In Europe, short-expiry short-maturity volatility is expected to drop further due to narrow outcome, despite the front-end having limited room to drop further.
J.P. Morgan: Historically, stocks and bonds are positively correlated during high inflation periods. Bond prices usually drop due to worry about future rate hikes. We recommend adding inflation-hedging alternatives.
Economy
Barclays: The ceasefire will not erase the impact on the economic growth and inflation left by the Iran War. We expect 2 hikes from ECB this year, although the de-escalation of the conflict would allow ECB to have more space to decide.
UBS: The impact of oil prices will start to be more prominent on inflation. Markets expect an acceleration in monthly headline inflation. Fed is open to hike rate given the rising inflation concerns.