- The strong rally to new all-time highs in the S&P 500 and Dax stock market indices has paused, although new highs look likely to be reached today or later this week. The S&P 500 Index briefly traded at a new record high yesterday. Asian markets are up a little today.
- Bitcoin is looking likely to make a major bullish thrust soon as it continues to trade above $60k not far from its all-time high price.
- The Forex market is seeing minor strength in the U.S. Dollar, with the Australian Dollar looking like the weakest major currency today.
- There will be a release of U.S. CPI (inflation) data today.
- Yesterday’s 10-year U.S. treasury auction produced an implied yield of 1.68%. well below recent highs.
- New coronavirus cases are rising globally for the seventh consecutive week, and deaths also increased last week for the fourth week running after falling for months, signifying a rebound in the pandemic in areas where vaccinations are relatively absent. The increase is especially pronounced in Latin America (accounting for 36% of deaths) and Europe (accounting for 29% of deaths). The situation is particularly bad in Brazil which saw a record number of daily coronavirus deaths at the end of last week – more than 4,000.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 137.2 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.16%.
- 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 61% of its entire population followed by the U.K. at 47%. For most of the world, a vaccine remains distant. Progress remains slow in the hard-hit European Union with only two member states (Hungary and Finland) having yet immunized more than 20%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Djibouti, Egypt, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Mali, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Sweden, Trinidad, Tunisia, Turkey, the United States, Ukraine, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan.
Forex Today: Stock Rally Pauses
Adam Lemon
Risk-on sentiment is pushing risky assets to challenge all-time highs