This week, of course, the most important topic is the speech that FED Chairman Powell will give at Jackson Hall on Friday, I will try to tell you my expectations about it. My expectations about the general course of the stock market will also emerge within this framework. This week, however, there are other flows of information. For example, FED Chairman Waller spoke today but did not say much about monetary policy. Maybe it would be good if he did not. Tomorrow, two FED chairmen will speak again. One of them, Bostic, who is on the monetary committee, was speaking quite hawkishly before. He had a dovish speech last week. Again, FED Vice Chairman Barr has a speech. These speeches can guide the stock market a little. Three FED directors gave speeches last week, all three were quite dovish and they were saying that it is time to cut interest rates.

When we come to Wednesday, there is no critical flow of information, no data. That is why we are skipping Wednesday. The Jackson Hall meeting will start on Thursday. FED members will start chatting there and two important data will come that day that will perhaps affect the speech to be given on Friday. The ongoing unemployment claims were 1864000 and the last announced and new unemployment claims were 227000 the previous week, 233000 are expected this time. Let's see how it will be and the average of the last 4 weeks was expected to be 236500, whether we will exceed this or not, it will be seen. Apart from this, another PMI on the production side of the United States, the S&P 500 PMI, was 49.8. We can also expect it to go down a little. There will be data on sales of existing homes.

So these are issues that may affect Powell's speech on Friday to some extent. But I also want to write to you in advance about Powell's speech on Friday. I expect it to be a dovish speech. But it won't be super dovish either. Everyone is expecting a 50 basis point cut in September, then another 50 basis points by the end of the year, a full point interest rate cut, I think these will not be discussed. Again, we are following the same thing, we are happy with the latest inflation figures in America. But there is no recession at the moment. There is also a softening in employment, but it is not very sharp. Maybe it can also make a reference to the Texas issue. Therefore, I expect such a calm but not super dovish speech. We say continue to follow the data. We will most likely start the reductions starting in September. But I guess he will say that I do not want to tell you how many points we will reduce. Hopefully, it will not be like that, he will say 50 basis points and explain it very well. But it is not what I expected and in practice, I think the reduction in September will be 25 basis points.

Because there is no recession in America like the ones they scared us with on this Japanese carry trade day. We went through all of this data. At least if the announced data is correct, of course, I do not know if there is a trick or a trick in that data. But employment data, retail sales data are not great. There is also deflation in America, so it is not a problem. But there is still no death, so I continue to have a cautiously positive attitude. I hope and think that Powell's speech will not move the stock markets much. Because he will not say a very clear interest rate. Rather, it is enough for the markets to say yes, we now give more importance to employment than inflation. I hope that the stock markets will continue to progress positively in this case. Of course, there may be some profit taking, we are entering Friday. There may be other surprises, I don't know.

Another issue is monkeypox, which spread from Africa, I never took it seriously, to be honest, it is a virus. The reason is of course deadly and dangerous, but the way it spreads is not through the air, but through contact. You will come into contact with the fluids of the person across from you. Through sexual contact, hugging, being together for a long time, talking very closely and being exposed to their saliva. The disease is transmitted only through these methods. I know that the spread rates of such diseases are always very low. Also, it is not a new disease, it is a very old disease. There is a vaccine, a treatment is known. Although its lethality rate is higher than Covid, it is still not that terribly high. Its appearance is a bit scary. But I do not expect something like this to affect world stock markets.

There are really contradictory data on whether America is entering a recession or not. But it is clear that it is not currently in a recession. What I do not like the most about the data is that there can be many retrospective revisions. There can be confusion in the details in the data. For example, last week the retail sales data was strong but car sales were not very strong. But in any case, it is clear that America is not currently in a severe recession. It is always possible that it could enter a severe recession, but the FED is entering very strongly with very high interest rates. I think it has a lot of weapons in its hands. In this context, I am generally positive. There is also a possibility that the productivity improvements created by artificial intelligence will soon be reflected in company balance sheets. I continue to be cautiously optimistic.

The current data flow is positive. On the other hand, we have entered a period of stock buybacks for companies on the stock exchange, which is also good. They can do this after the balance sheet is announced and there are companies that will buy back a lot of stocks, which is something that can keep the stock markets up. The first week of August is usually the worst week. I see that we have overcome that risk. Also, between Kamala Harris and Trump, the markets seem to accept that Kamala Harris will win the election and they don't seem to care too much. When we look at the economic program Kamala announced, there was nothing super disturbing in the market there either. So, right now, we seem to have a bright future, but please don't take my word for it and buy or sell. I'm just trying to share what I see with you.

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