- Global stock markets are falling, with the Japanese Nikkei 225 Index hit especially hard as it falls strongly to a new 3-month low price. Analysts are tending to attribute the dip to an increasing fear of inflation.
- The Forex market is seeing the U.S. dollar make a comeback, with the Australian dollar looking like the weakest counterparty, at least over the short term.
- The cryptocurrency Ethereum has continued to rise strongly to a new all-time high, while Bitcoin continues to trade mostly sideways. Ethereum appears to be the strongest major cryptocurrency and looks likely to rise higher still over the coming days.
- The price of gold has fallen slightly, but continues to hold up not far from its 3-month high made last Friday.
- Today will bring key data releases on British Preliminary GDP and European Union Economic Forecasts.
- Last week saw the first weekly fall in global new confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths in nine weeks, suggesting that the current wave of the pandemic may be beginning to retreat. The worst-hit country at present is India, although the number of confirmed new cases there has been falling over the past few days from its very high peak above 4,000.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 160.3 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.08%.
- 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 52%. For most of the world, a vaccine remains distant. However, the pace of vaccination in the European Union, which now has immunized 28% of its population, has picked up significantly.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Denmark, Egypt, Georgia, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan.