Weekly Market Update

Bond Portfolio Trends: Second Quarter 2025 Background Beginning in May 2012, we started tracking  portfolio trends of our bond accounting customers here at SouthState|DuncanWilliams.  At present, we account for over 130 client portfolios with a combined book value of $12.3 billion (not including SouthState Bank’s portfolio), or $95 million on average per portfolio.  Twelve months…

It’s a light data week and with the Fed going quiet prior to their FOMC meeting next week we’ll be subjected to the whims of the White House and the saga of Powell’s status as Fed Chair. For now, markets are quiet with a slight risk-on tone to start the week. Dow futures are indicated…

Fed Governor Waller was at it again in a Thursday evening address outlining his views for a rate cut at the upcoming July FOMC meeting. That has markets modestly bull-steepening in response, and while the “cut now” remarks are nothing new from Waller, he did add more meat to the bone for his thinking and…

Cooler PPI numbers this morning have slowed the upward push in Treasury yields. While headline PPI was unchanged, beating the 0.1% expectation, it was more mixed in the internals. The goods side did see price increases that were offset at the headline level by weaker service prices, which may reflect softening demand (for example, travel…

Treasuries are taking weekend developments in stride this morning which has been the tendency of late, but the question always lurks, for how much longer? Japanese long bond yields rose again, talk of 30% tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and possibly the EU, have been threatened and criticism against Powell over Fed HQ renovations only seems…

ADP reported the first month of private sector job losses in over two years this morning and that’s rekindled hopes for a July rate cut, and it also increases the intrigue for tomorrow’s BLS jobs report. Toss in some political intrigue into the mix with the House now attempting to pass what the Senate sent…

In a bid to restart trade negotiations with the US, Canada’s relented on the digital services tax levied against large US tech firms and that has markets in a risk-on mood to start the week, but Treasuries are playing along as well. Away from the trade news, the Senate will try to pass its version…

Investors are wading through the latest personal income, spending, and inflation numbers for May with the market mostly near levels prior to the release.  The inflation numbers, particularly core, were a touch hotter-than-expected while the softer spending numbers evidenced payback for earlier tariff front-running. Incomes fell as a one-time Social Security Fairness Act payment in…

Treasuries open the trading day mixed as the geo-political temperature continues to ratchet down and that has a quiet, slightly risk-on morning developing. President Trump is in Europe meeting with NATO allies and what could have been a contentious gathering appears to be a much more congenial affair. Meanwhile, Fed Chair Powell will be back…

The weekend bombing of several Iranian nuclear facilities by the US has opened another chapter in Middle East tensions with the West, and from an economic perspective the immediate question is if Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz where about 20% of global oil flows daily. So far, the Iranian Parliament has voted to…

Meeting Highlights  As widely anticipated, the Fed held the target rate range at 4.25% – 4.50%.  The updated rate forecast, or dot plot, still has 50bps in rate cuts in 2025, same as the March and December forecasts.  However, the margin is narrower. In March, 11 of 19 participants called for two or more cuts…

Fed Governor Christopher Waller was on CNBC this morning declaring that a rate cut in July is possible. “I think we’re in the position that we could do this and as early as July. That would be my view, whether the committee would go along with it or not.” While I’ve remarked earlier not to…