After Friday’s strong falls, global stock markets and cryptocurrencies are rising slightly as the new trading week begins.
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- Stock markets fell quite hard last week, with Friday seeing the first daily close of the S&P 500 Index below its 200-day moving average for about one and a half years. The index has fallen by almost 10% from its peak. These are bearish signs. The selloff was seemingly due to fears increase that the Federal Reserve will quicken its pace in tightening monetary policy over the coming months, with many analysts now expecting 4 rate hikes this year instead of the widely anticipated 3. The bull market may be over.
- In the Forex market, the Canadian dollar is the strongest major currency, while the euro is the weakest. This is unlikely to last for long.
- Cryptocurrencies made a significant breakdown at the end of last week, as risk sentiment soured. Bitcoin broke below key support at $40k simultaneously with Ethereum breaking below key support at $3k. If both cryptos hold below key nearby resistance levels over the coming days, they will be likely to fall further. For Bitcoin, the level is $36,656, and for Ethereum, the level is $2,544.
- WTI Crude Oil has continued to rebound quite firmly from Thursday’s low, and is rising now in off-hours trading.
- The US is evacuating families of its embassy staff in Kiev, Ukraine on fears that a Russian invasion is imminent.
- There will be releases later today of German Flash Manufacturing & Services PMI, then Australian CPI (inflation) data.
- Daily new coronavirus cases soared to a new global record at the end of last week, with more than 3.7 million new cases recorded for the first time.
- Data suggests that the globally rampant omicron coronavirus variant, while considerably more infectious, has notably milder effects than previous coronavirus strains, with an estimated 70% reduction in the probability of hospitalization. This is potentially very good news for both health and economy. Pfizer have announced they plan to have an omicron-specific vaccine ready in March.
- It is estimated that 60.5% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 352.1 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.59%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Nepal, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, the UAE, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Uzbekistan.
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