- The second round of the French Presidential elections concluded yesterday with a comfortable victory for sitting President Emanuel Macron. His win had been expected, but it has boosted the Euro and the French stock market and may be positive for other Eurozone markets when they open today.
- Stock markets are lower and looking more bearish almost everywhere, as they continued to fall during Monday’s Asian session. Both major Japanese and Chinese indices ended the day down by approximately 2%, while the S&P 500 Index is in sight of its 9-month support at around 4150. The bearishness is partially driven by positive real yields emerging last week in US 10-Year Treasuries.
- The risk-off environment is hurting the Australian Dollar, which is clearly the weakest major currency today, while the Euro is the strongest. It is also boosting the Japanese Yen which typically benefits from bearish stock markets. Of course, the Yen could easily turn around the begin weakening again due to the extremely accommodative monetary policy which the Bank of Japan is still determined to pursue, despite the Yen losing more than 10% of its value over the past few weeks.
- The Governor of the Bank of Canada will today be testifying before the Finance Committee of the Canadian Parliament.
- It is a public holiday in Italy today.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally fell last week for the fifth consecutive week.
- It is estimated that 65.1% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination, while approximately 6.5% of the global population is known to have contracted the virus at some stage.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 509.5 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.23%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing only in Samoa and Taiwan.
- A hard lockdown continues in Shanghai, China, with public disquiet observed over late delivery of food supplies to the quarantined population. The lockdown is causing some supply chain disruption globally, although certain vital factories are beginning to reopen.