Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Monday Espresso is your essential five-minute investment briefing, equipping you with everything you need to know for the week ahead. Marlborough's Multi-Asset Solutions Investment Team summarise market events over the past seven days and preview the key events in the week ahead, while also sharing their expert insights.
Monday Espresso Podcast 11th May 2026
[00:00:00] Rory Dowie: Good morning. Today is Monday, the 11th of May. I'm Rory Dowey, Portfolio Manager here at Marlborough.
[00:00:05] Rory Dowie: Today I'm delighted to be joined for the second time and as many weeks by Andrew Shaw. Andrew's one of our Senior Investment Analysts on the team. So Andrew, first things first. Good
morning.
[00:00:15] Andrew Shaw: Morning Rory.
[00:00:16] Rory Dowie: A slightly quieter week in the markets last week, well, relative to the week before anyway, but still lots going on.
[00:00:22] Rory Dowie: We are awaiting that deal in the Middle East and there were some clashes towards the end of last week between the US and Iran, but at the moment, as we were really.
[00:00:30] Rory Dowie: This morning, I'm keen to focus on a few things, firstly, earnings season, which has continued in the US and has been very strong.
[00:00:36] Rory Dowie: We also had US Jobs numbers reported on Friday, but before we get to that, Andrew markets, how they started in May?
[00:00:43] Andrew Shaw: The word is continuation. It's been a continuation of what we saw over the month of April. Rory. Equity markets have been solid and regionally it's the same story. Emerging Markets leading the way up 7% and just behind that is Japan up 6%.
[00:01:00] Andrew Shaw: The US is up around 2%. Lagging is the UK down 1%, while Europe is pretty much flat for the month.
[00:01:09] Rory Dowie: Okay, much the same than Andrew, particularly from that kind of regional hierarchy if you like as well.
[00:01:14] Rory Dowie: I wanted to highlight South Korea and that's part of Emerging Markets, which as you just mentioned, have been very, very strong.
[00:01:19] Rory Dowie: South Korea specifically has been performing very well of late, actually as of Friday, close last week, the KOSPI or, the Korean market. That was actually up now 14% so far this month and remarkably up nearly 80% so far this year.
[00:01:32] Rory Dowie: Andrew, for our listeners, can you give some colour on why Korea is performing so well?
[00:01:37] Andrew Shaw: In simple terms, Rory, it's mainly about what the Korean market is made up of and like the US is tech heavy, or the UK's weighted more towards energy and financials, Korea has its own characteristics.
[00:01:50] Andrew Shaw: In fact, 50% of the market is made up of two companies, so clearly they have a large effect on the overall market performance.
[00:01:57] Andrew Shaw: And those two companies are Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
[00:02:03] Rory Dowie: Okay, so those two companies, what's so special about them then?
[00:02:07] Andrew Shaw: Memory, Rory. AI has created new structural demand for memory chips and such as been the demand, there have been a real shortage of memory chips worldwide. This has allowed the producers of these chips to massively increase prices.
[00:02:20] Andrew Shaw: As a result, both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have been able to do this and so greatly benefited.
[00:02:27] Rory Dowie: AI just about driving everything it feels like then, the memory crunch clearly a real thing and based on comments we've had out of the earnings season, we touched on it last week, it really doesn't seem like it's going to slow down anytime soon.
[00:02:40] Rory Dowie: Moving on, Andrew, the key news from last week was probably on Friday we had the non-farm payrolls in the US, essentially gives us a good barometer on the jobs market. What was the latest on that front?
[00:02:52] Andrew Shaw: 115,000 jobs were added in April, which is well above expectations. Non-farm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 115,000, which was way ahead of the 55,000 jobs added estimate.
[00:03:06] Andrew Shaw: This gives us a second consecutive month of positive job growth in the US and first back to back month increase in nearly a year, the March number was also revised higher.
[00:03:16] Andrew Shaw: But the household survey tells a different story. Participation dropped to 61.8%, which is the lowest since October 2021, so there are fewer people looking for work.
[00:03:28] Andrew Shaw: Wage growth also came in a bit lower than expected.
[00:03:31] Andrew Shaw: The read for us then is cooling in quality, not quantity, but now gives the federal reserve room to hold rates.
[00:03:39] Rory Dowie: Okay, jobs numbers then? Well, for now at least, and you saw the positive market reaction in the US on Friday on the back of that print. Clearly the headline there, you know, jobs were added two consecutive months the first time in nearly a year and that was taken well.
[00:03:53] Rory Dowie: Looking forward, we usually do this right at the end of the pod, but next week we have Trump's scheduled to travel to Beijing for meetings with President Xi on May the 14th and 15th.
[00:04:04] Rory Dowie: Actually his first trip to China in eight years. It was originally planned for March Andrew, but got pushed back clearly because of the Iran conflicts.
[00:04:11] Rory Dowie: Anything specific we should be looking out for in those talks?
[00:04:15] Andrew Shaw: Yeah, there's lots on the agenda for us, but three main topics is Iran trade and tariffs and AI and tech.
[00:04:23] Andrew Shaw: It's difficult to know exactly what is gonna come out of those, but those are the three things that we're keeping an eye on closely.
[00:04:29] Andrew Shaw: It's worth noting that Trump may want to win with the midterms coming up and Chinese officials know this and perhaps that will work to their advantage.
[00:04:37] Rory Dowie: Yeah, as you say, Andrew, tough to know exactly what's going to come out of those talks, but you know, exciting nonetheless, and we would expect markets to move on any announcement really.
[00:04:46] Rory Dowie: Aside from scheduled talks, what else have our listeners got to look out for this week?
[00:04:50] Andrew Shaw: Earnings season in the US will carry on and we'll give a more meaningful summary of this in the coming weeks as everyone's finished giving us their numbers. However, so far earnings growth in the US is tracking at 23% for the quarter, which is the best growth since 2021.
[00:05:06] Andrew Shaw: The market being supported by earnings it seems. Aside from earnings, we have US inflation data.
[00:05:11] Rory Dowie: Great, thanks for joining me Andrew. That was very clear listeners, hope you found that useful. As always, please reach out if you have any questions and wishing you all a great week ahead.