- Stock markets are continuing to sell off strongly as the new week begins. The S&P 500 Index is trading below its 200-day moving average and 3000 level in off-hours trading.
- The Japanese Yen is the strongest major currency, 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.
- Friday saw a record-high number of new confirmed coronavirus cases globally.
- The U.K. and France are applying further easing of coronavirus lockdown measures.
- Coronavirus deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean are now 47% of the global daily total, which is again increasing exponentially, well exceeding those in both the U.S.A. (17%) 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 two weeks. Total confirmed new cases stand at over 7.9 million with an average case fatality rate of 5.48%. 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 increase 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 India and Pakistan.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to be increasing most quickly in Brazil, India, Pakistan, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Argentina. Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed cases of any country, followed by Russia and then India.