- A member of the US FOMC (Clarida) stated he can definitely see the Fed announcing tapering of QE later this calendar year. This sent the dollar somewhat higher as it would be a tightening of monetary policy, but the action was nothing very out of the ordinary. It sent the USD/JPY currency pair considerably higher from its previous day’s 50-day low price.
- The ADP US non-farm payrolls forecast released yesterday strongly undershot expectations. The forecast is that only 330k new jobs were created last month compared to the consensus expectation of 695k.
- In the Forex market, the NZD is clearly the strongest major currency, while the JPY is the weakest today.
- US ISM PMI Services data came in higher than expected at 64.1 compared to the consensus expectation of 60.5.
- Today will see the release of the Bank of England’s monthly policy release, which will be likely to cause volatility and possibly greater directional movement in the British pound.
- Last week saw a sixth consecutive weekly rise in global new confirmed coronavirus cases, suggesting that the pandemic is advancing again due to the spread of the more highly infectious Delta (Indian) variant, which vaccines are clearly less effective against at least in terms of preventing infection. Data from Israel suggest the effectiveness of vaccines may drop greatly after only a few months, but British data contradict such strong findings. However, both Israel and the UK are now giving third shots to their older populations.
- It is estimated that 14.9% of the world’s population has been fully innoculated against the novel coronavirus.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 201 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.12%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, Cuba, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, the U.S., Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.