- The price of gold reached a new 4-month high yesterday above $1900 per ounce. This bullish price action suggests that the price is somewhat likely to rise higher still over the coming days.
- Global stock markets are still broadly bullish, but yesterday’s action was mixed.
- In the Forex market, the New Zealand dollar is the strongest currency, while the British pound looks likely to be the weakest major currency today.
- The RBNZ in its monthly policy release left its interest rate unchanged, but reintroduced OCR projections into its rate statement, which has been taken by the market as a more hawkish bias, boosting the NZD.
- Cryptocurrencies seem to have bottomed out after falling very sharply last week. It appears as if Bitcoin may have bottomed out just above $30k, while Ethereum is looking somewhat weaker, having made a new lower low below $2k.
- Today will see a release of U.S. preliminary GDP data, which is likely to have an effect upon the value of the U.S. dollar.
- Last week saw a third consecutive weekly fall in global new confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths, suggesting that the current wave of the pandemic is starting to retreat. The effects of the vaccination programs in the most developed economies are now being felt.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 169.1 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.08%.
- The fastest progression in terms of immunizing a population against the coronavirus in all but the smallest states have been in Israel and Bhutan, which have given at least one shot to 63% of their entire populations, followed by the U.K. at 57%. For most of the world, a vaccine still remains distant. However, the pace of vaccination in the European Union, which now has immunized 36% of its population, has picked up significantly. In the U.S., 49% of the population has been vaccinated.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Afghanistan, Argentina, Bahrain, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Trinidad, Uruguay, and Vietnam.