Last September Week of 2026 Begins with Some Sizable Financial Market Moves
September 21, 2026
(121) Today’s market adjustments revolve around the price of oil. Although shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains very light, Brent ($101.09 per barrel) and WTI ($97.67) have slumped by 2.7% and 2.6% amid some optimism ahead of the week’s summit in Washington between U.S. President Trump and Chinese President Xi. In turn, long-term interest rates have eased back, and equity markets are showing gains. Ten-year sovereign debt yields are down by 11 basis points in France and Italy, 9 bps in Spain, 8 bps in the U.K., 6 bps in Germany and 4 basis points in the United States. Stock markets closed today with gains of 1.7% in South Korea, 1.2% in Hong Kong, 1.1% in Taiwan, 1.0% in China, 0.9% in Indonesia, and 0.8% in India. Each of Euroland’s four main stock exchanges plus the British FTSE have so far risen at least 0.9%, while futures for the four main U.S. stock market barometers are up 0.7% to 1.1% with the tech-intensive Nasdaq leading the rise. The price of Bitcoin has soared 4.2%, while those of gold and silver have retreated by 2.0% and 1.2%.
Holiday closures are being observed through Wednesday in Japan, today for Respect for the Aged Day and winding up with the Autumnal Equinox on Wednesday. According to Japan’s so-called sandwich rule, markets will be closed as well for a Citizen’s Day on Tuesday. Other holidays of note in the week are Yom Kippur today (the most solemn day of the Jewish calendar) and China’s mid-autumn festival on Friday. A much larger-than-normal number of U.S. and other central bankers around the world have speaking engagements planned this week. Top political leaders will be attending the U.N. General Assembly from today through next Monday to discuss key issues like AI and the wars in Iran and Ukraine.
The center-right German coalition led by Prime Minister Merz suffered twin regional election developments over the weekend in Mechlanburg-Pomerania and Berlin.
A light global data-release menu today features more price data from a number of second-tier economies.
- Estonian producer price inflation settled back to a 2-month low of 3.3% in August but remained well above this year’s low of 0.7% in March.
- A drop in Latvian PPI inflation to a 3-month low of 2.6% last month left such closer to the year’s high of 3.3% than low of -0.8%.
- Slovenian PPI inflation edged 0.1 percentage point higher to a 35-month high of 3.3% in August.
- Georgian PPI inflation rebounded to a 2-month high of 5.8% last month from 5.1% in July.
- Consumer price inflation in Lebanon last month of 16.7% was a percentage point higher than in July.
- In Azerbaijan, consumer price inflation printed at a 5-month low of 5.7% in August but remained above 5.0% for a twelfth time in a row.
Hong Kong’s current account surplus rebounded sharply last quarter to HKD 96.0 billion from HKD 38.5 billion in the first quarter. Such averaged around 8% of GDP in the first half of the year, down from 12.2% in 2025 and 13.1% in 2024.
Turkish business sentiment slid 0.8% to a 5-month low this month.
British house price inflation was below zero percent this month for a seventh straight time but only by 0.8%, according to the Rightmove index.
Copyright 2026, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved.
Tags: lower oil prices today
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