- A small rally in global tech and an increasing feeling that the worst of global inflation is already over contributed to a minor risk-on rally that continues today from last Friday. Global stock markets are rising, but most are well within technical bear markets, so the likely duration of the rally is easy to question.
- The Forex market is currently seeing a selloff in the US Dollar, with the Euro and British Pound looking relatively strong. It should be noted this is a countertrend movement which is very prone to a sudden reversal.
- A G7 summit begins in Germany today, with member nations looking for a way to avoid buying from Russia after western states earlier banned the import of Russian Gold. Russia has attacked Kiev at the same time.
- Russia defaulted on its sovereign debt for the first time since 1918.
- It is likely to be a quiet day in the Forex market in the absence of any major scheduled data releases, and as it is a Monday which is typically a slow day in the Forex market.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally rose again last week, against the long-term trend. It may be that the omicron subvariant BA5 will cause another significant wave.
- It is estimated that 61.4% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination, while approximately 6.9% 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 543 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.17%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing in Albania, Austria, Kenya, Israel, Bahrain, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, Singapore, and the UAE.