- Global stock markets continue to trade quite bullishly after recent dips. U.S. markets are relatively strong while Asian markets are weaker.
- Cryptocurrencies have continued to sell off over recent days. Bitcoin is now down by more than 20% in the past week alone, in line with the wider cryptocurrency market which has fallen by 23% over the past 5 days. Ethereum has fallen by even more, but seems to be recovering more firmly than Bitcoin right now.
- Risk sentiment is recovering in markets generally after recent dips. Precious metals like gold and silver, and the British pound, are breaking to new multi-month high prices against a broadly weak U.S. dollar.
- WTI Crude Oil looks bullish, and is not far from breaking to a new multi-year high price around $70 per barrel.
- The Reserve Bank of Australia released its monthly monetary policy meeting minutes, which suggested they are at least three years away from any rate hike. This seemingly had little effect on the value of the Australian dollar.
- Last week saw a second consecutive weekly fall in global new confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths, suggesting that the current wave of the pandemic is starting to retreat.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 164.2 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.07%.
- 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 63% of its entire population followed by the U.K. at 54%. For most of the world, a vaccine remains distant. However, the pace of vaccination in the European Union, which now has immunized 32% of its population, has picked up significantly.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Argentina, Bahrain, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Honduras, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Trinidad, and Vietnam.