Weekly Market Review: 17th of February 2025

In the US, the first US inflation print of 2025 saw the annual rate of inflation accelerate to 3%, an increase on the December rate of 2.9% and ahead of market expectations of 2.9%. For the week, the S&P rose 1.13%, while the NASDAQ rose 1.75%. In Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would invest €109bn in Artificial Intelligence at the recent AI Action Summit in Paris. For the week, the Eurostoxx50 and STOXX600 closed higher, up 2.66% and 1.33% respectively.  In the UK, the economy unexpectedly expanded in the final quarter of 2024, growing by 0.1%. For the week, the FTSE 100 fell 0.03%. In Ireland, mortgage rates in Ireland have reached their lowest level in almost two years, with the weighted average interest rate on new mortgages at the end of December 2024 being 3.80%. In Asia Pacific, CATL, the world’s largest producer of electric vehicle (EV) batteries is preparing for a secondary stock market listing in Hong Kong and would make it one of the largest stock offerings since 2021.