Last week, the economic calendar was extremely interesting. First and foremost, investors focused on the public appearance of Theresa May who announced “hard” Brexit. After all, the plan of leaving the EU by the Great Britain was rather positively assessed by the market. Thus, pound significantly appreciated against other foreign currencies. The meeting of the ECB Governing Council was another very important event last week. The council did not make any changes in the monetary policy. Moreover, Mario Draghi emphasized that the bank did not consider limiting the scope of QE - it was very good information for the stock markets. There was also a conference with the participation of Janet Yellen.

Last week, most of the major global stock indices continued their growths, whereas the market sentiment was slightly cooled down by Donald Trump. He took part in a conference which was the first one since his electoral success. Nonetheless, the famous billionaire did not live up to the expectations of the market which was looking forward to the specific announcements on the fiscal policy and infrastructure spending. This was all the more disappointing because of the fact that the Donald Trump’s election program was very controversial - it may be a fly in the ointment as well, especially if the protectionist schemes will be realized. As a result, this time dollar appreciated against euro and the stock market tone dropped slightly. In addition, investors learnt the dynamic of the US retail sales.

At the beginning of the new year the market sentiment was bullish. As a result, most of the global major stock indices ended last week in positive territory. In the US, the NASDAQ rose by 2.6%, the S&P500 increased by 1.7% and the DJI soared by 1%. In Europe, British FTSE250 went up by 1.5%, while French CAC40 and German DAX grew by 1%. The first week of 2017 brought a lot of macroeconomic data releases. Most of the readings from the Euroland exceeded market’s expectations e.g. the services PMI (53.7 pts.), the dynamic of the retail sales (2.3% y/y) and most of the confidence indices. Moreover, the publications of the PMIs from China did not fail as well. Nevertheless, investors focused on the latest data from the American economy.

The period between Christmas and New Year’s Day brought lower volatility and lower volume of trade in the financial markets. Nevertheless, the market sentiment was bearish in the US – during the whole week, the NASDAQ fell by 1.5%, the S&P500 went down by 1.1% and the DJI declined by 0.9%. Perhaps, the latest news on attacks of Russian hackers during the race for the White House had an adversely impact on the market tone. As a result, the Obama’s administration imposed sanctions on 35 Russian diplomats. After all, Russia refrained from retaliation, while Donald Trump emphasized that it was the time to take care of more important matters. Famous billionaire will soon start its term of office, so the return of the uncertainty may adversely affect attitude of the US stock indices.

Despite bloody terrorist attacks, there were not many market emotions during the last days before Christmas. As a result, major global stock indices did not see any significant movements. In Europe, British FTSE250 increased by 0.7%, German DAX rose by 0.4% and French CAC40 soared by 0.1%. In the US, the DJI and the NASDAQ grew by 0.5% and the S&P500 went up by 0.3%. Investors focused on the Bank of Japan - the last of major central banks, which made a decision on the monetary policy. However, this time the BoJ did not make any changes. In addition, investors learnt a lot of data from the American economy. This turned out to be ambiguous.