- The U.S. Federal Reserve left its interest rate and stimulus program unchanged, saying “Great uncertainty about the future….we are not even thinking about raising rates”. Stocks everywhere are being sold as the Fed sees current levels of unemployment as highly dangerous to the economy.
- Stock markets are selling off, and the pace of the selling has increased during the Asian session.
- The U.S. Dollar is strong, while the Australian Dollar is the weakest currency right now. This condition looks likely to continue today in the absence of any major scheduled economic data release.
- Yesterday saw a record-high number of new confirmed coronavirus cases globally.
- Coronavirus deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean are now 49% of the global daily total, which is again increasing exponentially, well exceeding those in both the U.S.A. (19%) and Europe (approx. 17%) which shows that the epicenter of the pandemic is in South America.
- Global daily coronavirus deaths globally peaked on April 18th but have begun to rise again over the past week. Total confirmed new cases stand at over 7.3 million with an average case fatality rate of 5.65%. Both the total number of new cases and deaths continue to fall daily almost everywhere in Europe outside Russia. New cases in the U.S.A. have seen an uptick over recent days.
- Brazil is seeing more daily deaths from coronavirus than any other country in the world. The virus also seems to be spreading dramatically in Mexico and India.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to be increasing most quickly in Brazil, India, Pakistan, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Sweden. Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed cases of any country, followed by Russia and then the U.K.