Marketmind: Of landings hard and soft

A look at the day ahead in markets from Sujata Rao.

The ink is barely dry on global growth forecast downgrades from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, but banks are rushing out their own gloomy assessments.

"Prepare for a hard landing," Deutsche Bank shrilled in a Wednesday report. Flagging the possibility of a Fed funds rate in the 4.5-5% range and euro zone rates at 2-2.5%, Deutsche chief economist David Folkerts-Landau said a late-2023 U.S. recession was now a baseline scenario.

Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, warns the Fed faces "a hard path to a soft landing".

The forward indicators in Friday's PMI data may signal how bad purchasing managers expect things to get. In the meantime, watch bond markets, which JPMorgan predicts will react if softening economic growth prices out some rate hikes.

Treasury 10-year yields slumped 11 basis points on Wednesday, while the 2-year/10-year yield curve -- that well-known recession indicator -- has flattened back to around 25 bps.

Some of that fall is being reversed on Thursday, but equity markets are higher -- in fact, Nasdaq futures are up half a percent following robust earnings from Tesla.

In fact, the earnings season is chugging along nicely, which made the Netflix report such a shocker -- declining subscriber numbers sent shares almost 40% lower on Wednesday, rippling out across the entire streaming sector, from Disney to Spotify.

In the euro zone, consumer confidence readings dived further in April, readings show on Thursday.

Central banks are, for now, showing little inclination to dial back rate hike expectations; the normally dovish San Francisco Fed chief Mary Daly said the case for a 50 bps May rate hike was "complete".

The big three of the central banking world - Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, ECB President Christine Lagarde and Fed chairman Jerome Powell -- speak on an IMF panel on Thursday. Their view on the growth/inflation trade-off will be closely monitored.

Key developments that should provide more direction to markets on Thursday:

-Eurozone final March HICP; flash consumer confidence

-Russian central bank head Elvira Nabiullina addresses Duma.

-U.S. initial jobless claims/Philadelphia Fed business index.

-U.S. TIPS auction

-European earnings: Nestle confirms margin and sales growth targets for 2022; ABB posts 'promising' start to 2022 with big jump in orders; Anglo American cuts production guidance after 10% Q1 drop

-U.S. earnings: Dow Chemicals, Philip Morris, AT & T, Blackstone, Alaska Air, American Airlines

(Reporting by Sujata Rao; editing by Dhara Ranasinghe)

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