Fin-X Weekly Update 2nd February 2026

The S&P500 briefly crossed 7,000 for the first time on solid earnings reports before easing back later in the week.

Geopolitical risk remained elevated, led by new US tariff threats and renewed warnings towards Iran, alongside a sweeping reshuffle in China’s top military leadership.

Precious metals and the US dollar swung sharply. After indicating apparent comfort with a weaker dollar, the president announced on Friday that Kevin Warsh will be nominated as the next Federal Reserve Chair.

The week ahead centres on a likely Reserve Bank rate rise tomorrow, meetings at the ECB and Bank of England, the ISM surveys and employment updates in the US, and a full slate of earnings reports.

Global equities found support from earnings last week, with the S&P500 and MSCI AC World indices hitting new record highs in US dollar terms. The S&P500 briefly topped 7,000 for the first time on Wednesday before falling back later in the week.

With roughly one-third of S&P500 companies having reported so far, earnings are up +15.3% yoy

according to Bloomberg figures.

Several of the technology majors reported last week. Meta added +8.8% in US dollar terms after beating revenue forecasts and providing bullish guidance, driven by robust online advertising sales. The company also intends to increase capital expenditures to as much as US$135.0 billion in 2026.

Microsoft shares fell -7.7% after reporting slower cloud revenue growth, while Tesla declined -4.2% after it announced it would discontinue the S and X models and invest US$2.0 billion into Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI. Projected total capital expenditures of US$20.0 billion are twice the consensus estimate.

Amazon shares were little changed (+0.1%) despite the company announcing 16,000 corporate layoffs and confirming negotiations to invest as much as US$50.0 billion in OpenAI ahead of this week's results. The leader in large language models is seeking to raise US$100.0 billion from investors, which could see the company reach an $850.0 billion valuation.

Elsewhere, bond yields remained in a remarkably tight range given the volume of geopolitical developments, macroeconomic data, and central bank updates.

President Trump said he would hike tariffs on autos, pharmaceuticals and lumber from South Korea from 15% to 25%. Trump cited a delay in the South Korean legislature's approval of a trade deal with the United States. The comments follow recent additional threats to Europe over Greenland and to Canada, following an outlined trade deal with China.

President Trump on Wednesday warned that an “armada” is heading toward Iran, and he threatened possible military action following the regime’s brutal crackdown on a wave of anti-government protests. His latest threat called for Iran to come to the negotiating table to reach a “fair and equitable” nuclear deal, or else “the next attack will be far worse” than last year’s US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The Brent Crude oil price moved above US$70.0 per barrel for the first time since September.

Meanwhile, China’s current military purge is a sweeping reshuffle of top leaders of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), framed as an anti-corruption drive but also serving to tighten Xi Jinping’s personal control over the armed forces. China’s Defence Ministry announced that Zhang Youxia, the PLA’s top general and vice chair of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and CMC member Liu Zhenli were dismissed and placed under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law.” Their removal leaves only Xi and discipline chief Zhang Shengmin effectively in place on the CMC. Of the seven members appointed in 2022, just one besides Xi remains, making this the smallest CMC lineup in the post-Mao era. Since Zhang was a childhood friend of Xi, the move signals that no one is safe from the anti-corruption drive. The longer-term consequences of the move are not yet clear, but a near-term attack on Taiwan appears somewhat less likely.

Gold and precious metals initially rallied on heightened tensions before receiving a further boost from the White House. The US dollar also slumped to its lowest levels since early 2022 after President Donald Trump indicated he’s comfortable with its recent decline.

However, precious metals prices tumbled on Friday after President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, set to succeed Jerome Powell when his term ends in May. The gold price dropped -9.0% while the silver price gave up -26.4% against the greenback in a single day’s trading. Bitcoin fell below US$80,000 for the first time since April.

Warsh, who served as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011, is not expected to overstimulate despite anticipated pressure from the White House. He has been a prominent critic of some of the central bank’s flagship policies, particularly the multiple rounds of quantitative easing. He has argued that the persistence of a vast balance sheet distorts asset prices and could risk entrenching inflationary pressure, even as he has recently said that the US economy faces downside risks that justify a lower policy rate.

On the current timeline, the new Chair is due to preside over his first meeting in June. Until then, the Federal Funds rate is expected to remain on hold at 3.50%–3.75% after Jerome Powell said at last week’s post-meeting press conference that the upside risks to inflation and unemployment had diminished.

The Swedish Riksbank also held rates at 1.75% on Thursday, and the ECB and Bank of England are expected to hold at 2.00% and 3.75%, respectively, later this week.

In contrast, the market is assigning a 2/3 probability that the Reserve Bank will raise the cash rate by +0.25% to 3.85% tomorrow following another higher-than-anticipated CPI reading. The Consumer Price Index rose +3.8% in the year to December 2025, according to the ABS, up from +3.4% in November. Core trimmed mean inflation was +3.3% yoy, up from +3.2% yoy a month earlier. Updated quarterly forecasts are also due to be released tomorrow.

The Board might not need to raise rates, since price increases were driven mainly by essentials such as rents and electricity. There were some additional increases attributed to a rise in domestic travel costs, which may be due to temporary factors such as the Ashes tour. As a consequence, the RBA is not expecting to follow with a series of rapid rate rises. Nevertheless, with Australian short-term rates likely to soon be higher than US rates, the Australian dollar has appreciated by +4.4% so far this year.

Over the weekend, Chinese January manufacturing (49.3) and services (49.4) PMIs both dropped back into contraction in January. These will be followed by the RatingDog PMIs this week.

This week’s key events also include a heavy run of S&P500 earnings led by Amazon alongside Alphabet, Qualcomm, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Merck and AbbVie.

The ISM survey, JOLTS and the monthly labour report will be published in the US this week, including the annual revisions of labour market benchmarks, which are likely to show that job growth over the past year was meaningfully weaker than first reported.

In Europe, the ECB meeting follows eurozone CPI and PPI figures due on Wednesday.

Significant Upcoming Data:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Australia	ANZ Indeed Job Ads.; Melbourne Inst. Inflation; Cotality Home Values; S&P Global Manuf. (F)	RBA Meeting & SMP; Priv. Sector Houses; Building Apps.	S&P Global Serv.& Comp. (F)	Trade
US	ISM Manuf. Survey; Treasury Borrowing Estimates; S&P Global Manuf. (F)	JOLTS report	ISM Services Index; ADP Employment; MBA Mortgage Apps; Wards Total Vehicle Sales; S&P Global Serv.& Comp. (F)	Challenger Job Cuts; Weekly Jobless Claims	Labour Report inc. Benchmark Revisions; UMich Cons. Sent.
Europe	2nd Tier Manuf. PMIs; German, Swiss & Dutch Retail Sales; Italian Budget Balance; UK Nationwide House Prices; SEB Swedish House Price. Indic.	French CPI & Budget Bal.; Spanish Unempl.; AIB Ireland Manuf. PMI; Italian New Car Reg.; Finnish House Prices	2nd Tier Serv.& Comp. PMIs; EZ, Italian, Dutch & Austrian CPI; EZ PPI	ECB & BoE Meetings; German Factory Orders; French Ind. Prod.; Italian Ret. Sales; UK S&P Global & German HCOB Constr. PMIs; Irish Unempl.; Norwegian Ave. Monthly Earnings; AIB Ireland Serv.& Comp. PMI; UK New Car Reg.; Finnish Trade	German, Spanish, Danish & Norwegian Ind. Prod.; German & French Trade; Dutch Cons. Spending; Swiss Unempl.; French Q4 Wages; UK DMP 1yr CPI & 3m Output Price Exp.; Swedish CPI & House Prices; Austrian WSale Prices
Japan	S&P Global Manuf. (F)	Monetary Base	S&P Global Serv.& Comp. (F)		Leading & Coinc. Indices; Household Spending
China	[Official PMIs]; RatingDog Manuf. PMI		RatingDog Serv.& Comp. PMI

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