- U.S. stock markets edged higher, while Asian markets traded lower on fears of the resurgence of coronavirus in the region.
- The Bank of Japan left policy unchanged in its monthly release earlier, while upgrading its GDP forecast slightly for Japanese economic growth for 2021 to 4%.
- In the Forex market, the U.S. dollar is gaining ground over the short-term everywhere, with the yen showing the most short-term weakness.
- Copper is breaking out to hit new 10-year highs with strong bullish momentum, suggesting that still higher prices will be reached over the coming days, which should be of interest to trend traders.
- There will be releases of U.S. CB Consumer Confidence and Australian CPI (inflation) data later today.
- Friday saw an all-time record high number of confirmed daily new coronavirus cases globally, due mainly to increasing rates of infection in Asia. The situation is especially bad in India which is seeing explosive growth in infection and an exponential rise in case numbers to new highs, which is putting a severe strain on the Indian health care system due to a shortage of oxygen. Many analysts believe the death toll in India is significantly underestimated. There are fears of mutations arising in India which would be resistant to current vaccines.
- Global coronavirus deaths increased last week for the sixth week running after falling for months, signifying a rebound in the pandemic in areas where vaccinations are relatively absent.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 148.5 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.11%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Argentina, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Germany, India, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Netherlands, Oman Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan.