Week ending 04/10/24 - The 'Beijing Bazooka' launches Chinese equities skywards

This week Jeremy and Gareth focus on Asia...the "Beijing Bazooka" has launched Chinese equities skywards, while Japan still holds risk for global markets.  Ironically, current tensions in the Middle East might be helping markets ignore Japan for a while longer, but in Europe inflation has fallen fast, raising concerns of a slowing economic outlook.   In the UK, as well as a buoyant housing market, we have a suddenly-active set of equity markets, with plenty of deals, fundraisings and another IPO all on the radar.  Progressive clients tinyBuild, Petro Matad and STV all updated this week, and the overall UK plc report-card is looking quite positive...hopefully the Budget won't deliver any negative surprises.  Just after recording this we will get the reaction to the US jobs number, some "extra spice" (as Jeremy puts it) for the end of this week, given its notorious unpredictability and high levels of historic revisions.  US inflation and UK GDP are the main data points for next week proper.  ----------------- Brought to you by Progressive Equity