Stocks and government bonds fall as investors worry over US rate rises

US stocks and government bonds sank and the dollar strengthened on Monday after last week’s blockbuster jobs report raised the likelihood of further interest rate increases.

Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 was down 0.6 per cent in afternoon trading and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9 per cent as the most recent non-farm payrolls report continued to dim sentiment.

US equities fell on Friday after the jobs report, but gained over the week as the Federal Reserve raised its main policy rate by only a quarter percentage point, the smallest amount since March.

Data released on Friday showed that the US added 517,000 jobs in January, much higher than the 185,000 anticipated by Wall Street economists. The unemployment rate fell to a 50-year low at 3.4 per cent and average earnings increased.

“The US labour data shocked” and the number of jobs created “makes it more probable that the Fed will keep hiking”, said Steve Englander, a strategist at Standard Chartered.

A measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of six other currencies added 0.6 per cent on Monday, but Refinitiv data shows that the currency has slipped about 6 per cent over the past three months as US rate rises have slowed.

Englander said the jobs report on its own was unlikely to unwind the negative view of the dollar, but that “alarming inflation signals” when January’s numbers are released later this month might do the trick. Inflation declined for a sixth consecutive month in December, coming in at an annual rate of 6.5 per cent.

Government bonds in the US and Europe sold off. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury rose 0.1 percentage point to 3.63 per cent. It followed a 0.13 percentage point increase on Friday. The rate-sensitive two-year Treasury yield increased 0.15 percentage points to 4.45 per cent.

The yield on the 10-year German Bund added 0.1 percentage points to 2.29 per cent, reversing a decline last week.

Traders initially rushed into government bonds on hopes that the current cycle of rate rises may be nearing its end, even though the European Central Bank and the Bank of England last week raised rates by half a percentage point.

Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 fell 0.8 per cent, as did Germany’s Dax, with sentiment also eroded by weak December eurozone retail sales figures. London’s FTSE 100, which last week hit a record high, fell 0.8 per cent.

Most Asian equities declined on Monday as a rally in January for Chinese equities fizzled out and heightened US-China tensions deflated sentiment. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 2 per cent, while China’s CSI 300 shed 1.3 per cent.

Prices for the international oil benchmark Brent crude added 1.4 per cent to $81.10 a barrel after losing 7.8 per cent last week. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate rebounded 1.1 per cent to $74.16 a barrel after falling 7.9 per cent in the previous week.