Last week the Fed’s meeting was in the spotlight. The consensus forecast a low probability of interest rate raise, whereas did not rule out a council’s hawkish statement. The FOMC actually did not change the interest rate. However, the members of the committee revised their projections on inflations expectations. As a result, the Fed announced just two interest rate hikes by the end of the year. On the one hand, this information caused the US dollar’s depreciation but on the other, it also supported American stock market indices. In addition, investors learnt the dynamics of the US industrial production and the retail sales.

At the beginning of the last week most stock markets were in a sideways trend. Meanwhile, investors awaited the ECB’s decisions. The Governing Council did not disappoint them. The interest rates were cut and the quantitative easing was expanded. In addition, the ECB expanded the range of assets it will purchase to include high – quality corporate bonds. What is more, the ECB declared the launch of the TLTRO II program. As a result, stock markets grew sharply. Nevertheless, a little later Mario Draghi reiterated that further cuts of interest rates would not be anticipated.

Global stock exchanges were dominated by bulls last week. In the US and Europe the market sentiment was quite good. During the whole week French CAC40 and German DAX increased by 3.3%. British FTSE250 grew by 2.2%. In the US, the NASDAQ rose by 2.8%, the S&P500 went up by 2.7% and the DJI took off by 2.2%. European stock markets were supported by promising economic data. The unemployment rate in the Eurozone stood at 10.3% vs 10.4% expected. Moreover, the releases of the final PMIs turned out slightly better than expected. The industrial PMI stood at 52.2 pts. and the services PMI stood at 53.3 pts.. Furthermore, the retail sales grew by 2% y/y

European and American stock markets ended the last week of February in the green. However, its first part was dominated by bears. The market sentiment deteriorated after some releases of the economic data from the Eurozone. Plenty of them were disappointing. The services PMI stood at 53.0 pts. in February vs 53.6 pts. in January. What is more, the industrial PMI decreased from 51.0 pts. to 53.3 pts.. It is worth reiterating that German Ifo index went down to 105.7 pts. in February from 107.3 pts. last month. It was the third decline in a row. Moreover, investors were worried about the Brexit.

At the beginning of the week there were some releases of economic data from China and Japan. Nevertheless, the weak data did not have a substantial impact on market sentiment, which had significantly improved in the next days. On Wednesday the market was totally dominated by bulls. As a result, it was the best day on the global stock exchanges during the whole week. Subsequently, the end of the week brought a stabilization. As a result, the NASDAQ went up by 3.9%, the S&P500 increased by 2.8% and the DJI grew by 2.6%. In Europe, French CAC40 took off by 5.7%, the British FTSE250 and German DAX rose by 4.7%.