- Markets are quiet in the absence of any real major news or themes, excepting tomorrow’s release of US CPI (inflation) data which will be eagerly digested. The annualized rate has been rising every month but there is hope that this month it may finally fall, which could suggest inflation has peaked and that the Federal Reserve’s recent rate hikes have begun to bring inflation under control. Ahead of this release, the US Dollar has been consolidating.
- Commodities are mostly higher, especially Palladium, Silver, and agricultural commodities.
- BTC/USD is continuing its recent slow but firm rise, being held by a bullish price channel. Yesterday it made a new price high for August.
- There are concerns over global economic growth with some analysts suggesting that planned rate hikes will need to be exceeded, which will cause a stronger downturn in global GDP.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally dropped last week for the third consecutive week, reversing the earlier trend of an increasing number of confirmed cases.
- It is estimated that 67.2% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination, while approximately 7.5% 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 590.3 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.09%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be most significantly increasing in Barbados, Chile, Japan, South Korea, and Serbia.