Angry protests erupt in China’s major cities against draconian covid lockdown measures, sending stock markets, crude oil, and the Australian Dollar lower, and the US Dollar higher as a safe haven.
- Unusually vehement protests have erupted in China against restrictive covid lockdown measures, including in Beijing and Shanghai. The anger of the protests has surprised observers and has shaken global stock markets a bit as the week opens, with most major indices down from Friday’s close. Risk assets are down, notably WTI Crude Oil and the Australian Dollar, both of which suffer when Chinese demand shows signs of faltering. The US Dollar is the main beneficiary as a safe haven, putting the AUD/USD currency pair and WTI Crude Oil in focus for traders today.
- In the Forex market, the US Dollar is clearly the strongest major currency, while the Australian Dollar is obviously the weakest. Sentiment on Australia wasn’t helped by the Governor of the RBA’s apology for providing poor interest rate guidance (that rates would not rise until 2021).
- The price of WTI Crude Oil has fallen quite sharply to reach its lowest level since December 2021.
- Daily new global coronavirus cases rose slightly last week but remain at historically low levels.
- It is estimated that 68.5% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 646.1 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.03%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in China, Japan, the UK, and Venezuela.
