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- US President Biden promised “no new cold war with China” as he met with Chinese leader Xi. The seemingly amicable meeting has reduced tensions between the two superpowers and boosted Asian stock markets, with the HSI towards the end of the day up by as much as 3.5%. The Chinese government has taken action to ease a credit crunch within its real estate sector, which has also helped.
- The Reserve Bank of Australia released the minutes of its recent meeting which showed a stronger rate hike of 0.50% was considered but the bank opted to go with a lesser 0.25% hike. The minutes show participants want to keep their options open but had very little effect on the value of the Australian Dollar.
- The price of Silver rose again yesterday to reach a new 5-month high as risky assets have continued to gain, notably in the precious metals sector. Silver is outperforming Gold.
- Following its sharp fall last week upon the collapse of FTX, Bitcoin seems to be bottoming out above $16k.
- The Forex market is calming down and consolidating after last week’s dramatic trend reversal against the US Dollar. The EUR/USD currency pair is notable for being stuck at an area of resistance at about $1.0362. If the price can get established well above that level, it will be a strongly bullish development for the Euro.
- There will be a release of US PPI (purchasing power index) data today which might give some more insight into inflation. A rise of 0.4% month on month is expected, the same as the recent CPI (inflation) data. A lower rate should be positive for the US stock market and could weaken the US Dollar further.
- There will be a release of British unemployment data today.
- Daily new global coronavirus cases dropped last week, continuing a downwards trend which began last July.
- It is estimated that 68.2% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 640.6 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.03%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in Japan and China.