- WTI Crude Oil remains bullish and not far off its recent 7-year high price, making it attractive to trend traders. Some analysts see Russia/Ukraine tensions as helping keep the price of crude oil high.
- Global stocks mostly rallied during the first Asian session of this week, led higher by a rally in the Chinese technology sector. However, the world’s major stock market index, the S&P 500, closed Friday for the sixth consecutive day below its 200-day moving average, trading into correction territory, indicating that there may not be a sustainable bullish environment for global stock markets.
- In the commodities markets, several agricultural commodities such as corn, soybeans, and cotton continue bullishly breaking to new high prices. These may be good long-term trend trades on the long side.
- In the Forex market, markets ended last week in risk-off mode but we have seen a small risk recovery since this week opened. Today, the New Zealand dollar is the strongest major currency, while the Japanese yen is the weakest. This may not last long as the true long-term trend in the Forex market is in favor of the US dollar.
- Major cryptocurrencies are falling weakly. Bitcoin and Ethereum are again trading close to pivotal levels. This suggests short breakdown trades in crypto may arise as trading opportunities in the near future.
- It is expected that the Reserve Bank of Australia tomorrow will leave its interest rate unchanged, but announce an imminent end to its QE (asset purchase) program and indicate its next rate hike for Q3 2022. The Australian stock market fell in Monday’s trading.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally fell last week for the first time in two months, suggesting that the omicron variant wave may have already peaked, although it is too early to make that call with real hope of accuracy.
- It is estimated that 61% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 375.2 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.51%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Al Salvador, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the Ukraine, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan.