- President Biden announced he is considering cancelling Trump-era tariffs on Chinese imports. This seems to have boosted the stock market, with the S&P 500 Index now trading higher than Friday’s closing price. The Index reached a 20% decline at the end of last week, but remains bid below 3,900.
- The improving atmosphere in stocks seems to have helped the cryptocurrency sector, with Bitcoin/USD trading firmer above the big round number at $30k, while the key support level at $28,607 has continued to hold. This suggests that the line of least resistance in Bitcoin is likely to be upwards, so we may see a rise in value here over the coming days.
- In the Forex market, the Australian and New Zealand Dollars are rising firmly, which was probably triggered by the clear Australian election result yesterday, which sees the opposition Labor Party assume power for the first time in a decade. It is the clarity rather than the stated policies of the new government which is behind the rise. The US Dollar is clearly the weakest currency right now as it continues to decline following last week’s retreat from its long-term high price.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally rose last week after falling for eight weeks.
- It is estimated that 65.7% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination, while approximately 6.7% of the global population is confirmed to have contracted the virus at some time, although the true number is highly likely to be much larger.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 527.7 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.20%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in Belize, Chile, the USA, Jamaica, Panama, Portugal, and Taiwan.