Regional banks drive US market gains<\/p>\n
After a choppy week, the three major United States (US) equity<\/a> indices finished higher on Friday and for the week. Markets<\/a> were buoyed as tariff threats faded and regional bank earnings eased credit market concerns. For the week, the Nasdaq 100<\/a>\u00a0finished 2.46% higher, the\u00a0S&P 500<\/a> added 1.70%, and the Dow Jones<\/a>\u00a0lifted by 711 points.<\/p>\n Regional banks rebounded on Friday after several, including Truist Financial, Regions Financial<\/a>, and Fifth Third<\/a>, reported better-than-expected earnings. Zions Bancorporation<\/a> surged 5.8% to $49.67, Truist gained 3.67% to $42.60, Western Alliance<\/a> added 3.1% to $72.48, and Fifth Third climbed 1.31% to $40.89.<\/p>\n Despite Friday\u2019s rebound, questions remain about whether last week\u2019s regional bank flare-up is contained or an early sign of broader systemic stress, particularly given the rapid growth in collateralised loan and private credit markets and signs of weaker lending discipline. Thursday\u2019s flare-up followed JPMorgan\u2019s<\/a> Jamie Dimon warning earlier in the week about \u2018cockroaches\u2019 in the credit market after the collapses of Tricolour Holdings and First Brands Group.<\/p>\n Focus on US-China developments and upcoming tech earnings<\/p>\n Tariff-related tensions eased into the weekend after US President Trump acknowledged that a 100% tariff on China was unsustainable. It was confirmed he will still meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit at the end of this month. News that Treasury Secretary Bessent will meet Chinese officials later this week in Malaysia also helped sentiment.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, attention this week will focus on US-China developments and third quarter (Q3) 2025 earnings from technology companies, including Tesla<\/a>, Netflix<\/a>, International Business Machines Corporation<\/a>, and Intel<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite the US government shutdown entering its fourth week and the Federal Reserve (Fed<\/a>) now in the blackout period, markets will receive a US inflation<\/a> update (previewed below).<\/p>\n Consumer price index\u00a0<\/p>\n Date: Friday, 24 October at 10.30pm AEST<\/p>\n For August, headline inflation in the US increased by 0.4% in line with expectations. This resulted in the annual rate of headline inflation rising to 2.9%, below the forecast of 3%.<\/p>\n The annual core consumer price index (CPI)<\/a>, which excludes volatile items like food and energy, rose by 0.3% month-on-month (MoM), which saw the annual core inflation rate remain at 3.1%, unchanged from July and in line with market expectations.<\/p>\n For September, the expectation is for the annual headline inflation rate to rise to 3.1% year-on-year (YoY), which would be its highest reading since May 2024, while the core measure is expected to remain at 3.1% YoY.<\/p>\n Ahead of this, the US interest rate<\/a> market is fully priced for a 25 basis point (bp)<\/a> Fed cut in October and fully priced for another 25 bp cut in December, as the Fed prioritises bringing support to a cooling labour market despite persistent inflation.<\/p>\n US core inflation rate chart<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regional banks drive US market gains After a choppy week, the three major United States (US) equity indices…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,63,99,171],"class_list":["post-226562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-markets","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}