\n\tBy Chris Shaw<\/p>\n
\n\tThe old equity investors' market adage may be “sell in May and go away” but as Barclays Capital notes, global equity markets generally have a positive skew for the month. Nine of the 15 indices covered by Barclays are on thee-year May winning streaks and the group suggests Australia's All Ords actually has the highest chance of advancing this May at 70%.<\/p>\n
\n\tThis compares to just a 52% chance for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 50% chance for the UK's FTSE100, while China's Shanghai Composite is seen as a 60% chance of ending the month higher. Only the Nikkei is a less than even money chance of gaining according to Barclays, the group giving it only a 48% chance of an advance this month.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile the potential exists for a solid showing by Australian equities, the currency outlook is less positive, Barclays noting May is typically a weak month for most of the Commonwealth currencies including the Aussie, New Zealand and Canadian dollars.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Kiwi against the US dollar tends to have its worst month of the year and this trend should continue as Barclays gives this currency pair just a 31% chance of an advance this month. This compares to a 38% chance of advancing for both the Aussie and Canadian dollars against the US currency. The latter comes despite an eight-year bear streak for the US dollar against the Canadian dollar in May.<\/p>\n
\n\tElsewhere, the US dollar is expected to gain a little, Barclays giving it odds of a little better than even money to gain against the euro and the yen, while the euro itself is given a 54% chance of ending May higher against the yen than where it is now.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn terms of the commodities markets, Barclays notes the energy and precious metals sectors are typically the most bullish performers in May. This trend should hold, Barclays giving gold a 55% chance of advancing this month, silver a 57% chance, natural gas a 58% chance and oil a 54% chance.<\/p>\n
\n\tAluminium typically does it tough in May, posting its lowest median returns of the year, and this year should be no exception according to Barclays. It gives the metal only a 45% chance of gaining this month, compared to a 54% chance of copper ending the month higher.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the fixed interest markets, Barclays points out May tends to show strong tendencies, with the German curve trending significantly bearishly while New Zealand 10-year bonds are the most bullish. This is reflected in the group's view US and European 10-year yields have around 60% chances of gaining this month, against just a 39% chance for the matching New Zealand securities.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn contrast, Barclays suggests the odds of a yield advance for Australian 10-year bonds stands at around 55%, while for Japanese 10-year securities the odds are around 45%. In terms of the yield curve, Barclays suggests the odds of a steepening are lowest for the US two-year\/10-year pair at just 36%, which compares to odds of 58% for a steepening in the same securities pair in Europe.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn terms of widening spreads Barclays sees the best odds in the EU versus US 2-year bond market at 63%, while the UK versus US 2-year bond market has the lowest odds of a widening in spreads at just 44%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barclays Capital’s review of seasonal trends shows May tends to be a positive month for equities, energy and precious metals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,21,29,24,26],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}