- Stock markets bounced back firmly yesterday. The S&P 500 Index rose by 0.83% while the Nikkei 225 Index was up by 4.64% in late-session trading.
- For the first time, the U.S. Federal Reserve has controversially announced it will buy individual corporate bonds.
- In Forex, the Australian Dollar and British Pound are the strongest major currencies, while the Japanese Yen is the weakest currency right now, as risk sentiment returns.
- Today will see the release of U.S. retail sales data.
- Friday saw a record-high number of new confirmed coronavirus cases globally.
- India and Brazil are beginning to relax coronavirus lockdown measures, despite the fact that both countries are continuing to see strong growth in new confirmed cases.
- North Korea is threatening to send troops into the DMZ arguing that South Korea has failed to deliver on a pledge to stop activists sending balloons with loads of food and media over the border.
- Coronavirus deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean are now 46% of the global daily total, well exceeding those in both the U.S.A. (17%) and Europe (approx. 17%) which shows that the epicenter of the pandemic is in South America.
- Global daily coronavirus deaths globally peaked on April 18th but have begun to rise again over the past two weeks. Total confirmed new cases stand at over 8 million with an average case fatality rate of 5.44%. Both the total number of new cases and deaths continue to fall daily almost everywhere in Europe outside Russia. New cases in the U.S.A. have seen an increase over recent days.
- Brazil continues to see more daily deaths from coronavirus than any other country in the world.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to be increasing most quickly in India, Pakistan, Chile, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Argentina. Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed cases of any country, followed by Russia and then India.