Analysts are also pointing to markets belatedly responding to attacks on vessels in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi militants, causing exporters to scramble to find alternative routes.
Maybe the thing to do is to remember it’s nearly Christmas and the S&P 500 is still up 9.5% so far since the start of October, which would be its best quarter in two years.
The juggernaut of market euphoria from last week’s dovish shift in the Federal Reserve outlook keeps rolling on in the rates market, however.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield was last at 3.8676%, near the previous session’s five-month low of 3.8470%.
In Europe, Italy’s 10-year yield is at 16-month lows, given another nudge by European Union finance ministers agreeing the latest reform of the bloc’s two-decade-old fiscal rules.
The day ahead is pretty thin on the data front, with final third quarter GDP data and weekly jobless claims. The last big piece of data before Christmas is Friday’s U.S. core PCE price index reading – the Fed’s preferred measure of underlying inflation, where another slowdown is expected.
