Market Information Friday 25 February 2022

The United States and the European Union have imposed harsh sanctions on Russia following the attack on Ukraine, but Russia will not be excluded from the SWIFT payment system for the time being. This was announced by US President Joe Biden at a press conference last night. Approximately 11,000 banks are connected to the SWIFT payment system and it plays a crucial role in enabling payments to be made quickly and reliably around the world. By excluding Russia, it will hit the entire Russian economy very hard and many Western leaders therefore also see it as the most severe economic sanction.

The confidence of Dutch manufacturers in the industrial sector fell slightly in February. This is evident from data from Statistics Netherlands published this morning. The index came out at 8.5 in February, a decrease of 0.5 compared to the position in January. The average for the past 20 years is significantly lower at 0.8. Thus, in general, producers are still positive about the industrial sector. Over the past 4 years, producer confidence reached its lowest point in April 2020 at a reading of -28.7. Since then, confidence has steadily increased to 12.7 in November 2021.

Between February 12 and February 19, 232,000 initial jobless claims were filed in the United States. As a result, the number of new applications fell by 17,000 from a week earlier. Analysts had previously predicted a decline of 14,000. The actual development of the number of applications is thus in line with analysts’ expectations. The total number of applications also remains around the level of before the corona pandemic.

The 6M Euribor increased with 1 basis point to -0.48% compared to previous business day. The 10Y Swap decreased with 3 basis points to 0.81% compared to previous business day.

In the attachment, today’s market data on money and capital market rates as well as other rates are presented.