📆The week ahead 31/10/22

• Abnormally warm weather has played a significant role in helping Europe shore up its energy needs, giving their storage capacity a better chance of making it through winter as the need to draw from these inventories has remained low. These higher temperatures have helped bring European Natural Gas prices significantly off their 2022 highs, but even with these, current prices remain highly elevated compared to before 2022.

• Over in Japan, volatility has continued around the 150 level in USDJPY, with the BOJ again coming out this week and defending the level in markets. BOJ Kuroda came out on Friday to hit back at the market by defending the BOJ's actions and trying to reassure markets. Similarly, the MoF in Japan proposed a new $200 Billion package to fight inflation.

Big Tech earnings also finished this week with Amazon, Apple and meta reporting earnings. With pretty much every big tech company missing or adjusting guidance lower for Q4 and 2023. The tech rout has eliminated trillions of dollars in market cap since the start of 2022, with a combination of economic slowdown, inflation and tightening market conditions these losses are set to continue in the near future.