- The strong rally in U.S. and Eurozone stock indices saw a pause and retracement yesterday after dipping from record high prices. Asian markets are also mostly lower today.
- Bitcoin has failed to make a strong recovery from its recent dip and continues to trade below $57k.
- The Forex market has seen the U.S. dollar sell of quite strongly against almost all other major currencies, while the Australian dollar, euro, and British pound all look relatively strong.
- The price of WTI Crude Oil is showing some bullish momentum, as it passes through $64 and looks increasingly likely to test the long-term high prices made last month.
- The Reserve Bank of Australia released the minutes of its most recent monetary policy meeting. The headline takeaways are that rates are expected to remain unchanged until 2024 when targets for unemployment and inflation are expected to be reached.
- New coronavirus cases are rising globally for the eighth consecutive week, and have reached the point where they are almost as high as the record high cases seen early in January. Deaths also increased last week for the fifth week running after falling for months, signifying a rebound in the pandemic in areas where vaccinations are relatively absent.
- India is seeing its highest every daily coronavirus caseload and deaths there are rising as the health care system comes under severe strain. The capital New Delhi has begun a week-long lockdown. There are fears of mutations arising in India which would be resistant to current vaccines.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 142.7 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.13%.
- The fastest progression in terms of immunizing a population against the coronavirus in all but the smallest states has been in Israel, which has given at least one shot to 62% of its entire population followed by the U.K. at 48%. For most of the world, a vaccine remains distant. Progress remains slow in the hard-hit European Union with only four member states (Hungary, Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania) having yet immunized more than 20%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland, Trinidad, Tunisia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.