- Stocks and risk assets have faced a small setback after an earlier rise Monday as two Fed members make hawkish remarks emphasizing that they expect to see rates above 5% soon. The price drops were not very large so it seems quite likely the market will shrug off these remarks later today and continue with the earlier risk-on rally.
- The long-term bullish trend in precious metals continues, with the price of spot Gold rising to another 6-month high above $1879. The price of spot Silver is also bullish, but less so. In the commodities sector, Copper and Cocoa have also made bullish breakouts to new multi-month highs. All these assets are attractive to long-term trend traders in the long direction right now, as higher prices here are likely over the coming days.
- In the Forex market, we currently see more in-trend movement in the major currency pairs, especially in the EUR/USD currency pair and less drastically in the USD/JPY currency pair. The strong long-term technical trend against the US Dollar remains, with the Euro and the Aussie making multi-month highs against the greenback. Earlier risk-on sentiment is helping weaken the US Dollar, which is the weakest major currency, while the Euro is currently the strongest.
- The price of WTI Crude Oil is falling again, as the commodities remains within a well-defined long-term bearish trend.
- There are initial signs that the Bank of Japan may have finally succeeded in its long-term efforts to reflate the Japanese economy, with inflation in the Tokyo area reaching 4% for the first time since 1982.
- There will be a release of Australian CPI (inflation) data today.
- Daily new global coronavirus cases decreased last week for the third consecutive week.
- It is estimated that 69.1% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 669 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.00%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in China, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Taiwan. A Chinese official in one province implied yesterday that over 88 million people had been infected in just the past few weeks.