- The Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised its Official Cash Rate by 0.50% as had been expected by the market consensus. The Official Cash Rate of 2.00% is the highest of any major currency. The Kiwi rose firmly on the news, with the NZD/USD currency pair powering to a new 3-week high price, but may face resistance at 0.6550. The bullish Kiwi outlook is due more to the RBNZ signaling it will take a more hawkish shift on future rate hikes.
- In the Forex market, the US Dollar remains weak, but bears are losing momentum. The NZD is clearly the strongest currency right now.
- The US stock market is rising again, with the S&P 500 Index seeming to firmly reject low points. A daily close below 3,900 would put this in doubt.
- Cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin/USD, are still not rising convincingly. However, Bitcoin’s key support level at $28,607 has continued to hold for yet another day. 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.
- Natural Gas futures closed yesterday at a new and very long-term high, suggesting an upwards move is likely over the near term. However, Natural Gas has lately showed huge volatility and very deep bearish dips, making trend trading this energy challenging.
- Yesterday’s release today of German Flash Services and Manufacturing PMI data showed manufacturing come in higher than expected while services came in lower.
- 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 529 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.19%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in Belize, Chile, the USA, Jamaica, Panama, Portugal, and Taiwan.