- WTI Crude Oil traded at a new 7-year high Friday, and continues to look bullish despite OPEC’s agreement last week to increase oil production by 400k barrels in March. bullish momentum suggests a continuing rise which is attracting trend traders. Some analysts see Russia/Ukraine tensions as helping keep the price of crude oil high.
- The cryptocurrency sector has advanced over recent days, with Bitcoin and Ethereum now trading above key round numbers at $40k and $3k respectively. There is bullish momentum in major cryptocurrencies.
- Agricultural commodities such as cotton, corn, and soybeans have continued to rise firmly to reach new multi-month high prices, attracting trend traders with access to these assets as CFDs, futures, or ETFs.
- The Forex market is quiet ahead of a typical Monday with no major releases scheduled, so is likely to remain that way. Over the short term, the CAD and AUD are strong while the JPY and EUR are weak. Over the longer term, there is a bullish trend in the US dollar.
- Global stock markets were mixed during the Asian session.
- Friday’s US non-farm payrolls data came in much higher than had been expected, with a net new 467k jobs created compared to an anticipated 110k.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally seem to have peaked three weeks ago, suggesting that the omicron variant wave may have already peaked worldwide.
- It is estimated that 61.4% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 395.9 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.45%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Afghanistan, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bhutan, Brazil, Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, the UK, and the Ukraine.