- Today’s Asian session has seen another tough time for global stock markets, with both the Chinese HSI and the Nikkei 225 Index down by more than 1%. The key S&P 500 Index is also trading lower off-hours after making significant losses last week.
- Gold is falling in a downwards wave towards the 2-year low it made last week. Commodities in general are very weak.
- In the Forex market, the US Dollar remains strong following the release of US CPI (inflation) data last Tuesday which showed prices increased by 0.1% month-on-month when they had been expected to fall, creating an annualized rate of 8.3%, slightly down on last month’s 8.5% but higher than the 8.1% which had been expected. The 2-Year Treasury yield Friday reached a new multi-year high above 3.90% and there has been a deepening in the inverted yield curve. The New Zealand Dollar looks to be the weakest major currency right now.
- It is a public holiday today in the UK due to the Queen’s funeral, so the Forex market is likely to be quiet until the US session begins.
- There will be a release of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes later.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally dropped last week for the ninth consecutive week, giving rise to the hope that the pandemic is finally over in any meaningful sense.
- It is estimated that 67.9% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination, while approximately 7.8% 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 617.2 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.06%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in Taiwan and Russia.