Stock Market Today
US and European futures are trading in positive territory as traders take advantage of lower prices by bagging bargains. In the past few days and weeks, we have seen a serious sell-off for the global equity markets, and the reality is that the concerns which broke the back of the bull rally are still intact. However, today, traders seem to be ignoring all those concerns.
The focus continues on mega tech stocks and their earnings, and if any of them miss the estimates like Netflix, pessimism will likely take control of the price action. Nearly 160 S&P 500 companies will report their earnings this week, but the earnings results from Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Apple will set the tone for trading.
We have the US Core Durable Good orders m/m and US Consumer Confidence data hitting the tape later in the day in terms of economic data. The Durable Goods numbers are expected to come in at 12:30 GMT, and the forecast is for 0.5%. As for the consumer confidence data, it will be released at 14:00 GMT, and the forecast is for 108.
Elon And Twitter
Elon knows one thing, and that is having things his way. The person who refused to join the Twitter board now owns Twitter. Elon’s bid of $54.20 per share was accepted unanimously by the shareholders, and Elon has decided to take the company private. However, some additional details of the deal are unknown, keeping Twitter’s users and employees on edge. The thing is that Elon wants to promote free speech, and this was the message in his tweet after the deal was signed. He hasn’t given out how he wants to improve free speech. If the platform is left ungoverned, it could promote racism, hurting its massive user base. There is little to no information on how Elon wants to improve twitter’s platform, although he has provided clues about what he doesn’t like in the platform.
Gold
The precious metal is somewhat recovering its losses today. Still, the upward price trend remains under a significant threat, and this is because the dollar index is maintaining its strength which is hurting the gold price. Yesterday, the bears pushed the precious metal’s price to its lowest level in nearly four weeks as investors displayed their discomfort about the Fed’s aggressive monetary policy stance. It is petty much given that the Fed will increase the interest rate by 50 basis points during their next meeting, but their biggest worry is that the subsequent rate hikes could be even greater. This is undoubtedly a little overextended view, as the last thing the Fed wants is to undo their hard work by bringing the American money on the right track.
Oil
The black gold is moving to the upside today, and traders feel less anxious about Chinese demand. One thing that traders will be looking at very closely regarding oil demand is the outcome of the mass covid test that is taking place across China’s largest cities. If the results are unsatisfactory, the government could force a lockdown which will be highly disastrous for oil demand. On the positive side, if the results continue to suggest that things aren’t worse, we could see a strong rally in oil prices.
Asian Markets
Asian markets have seen a recovery in the sentiment today despite China having decided to expand its mass testing of Covid. China’s zero-tolerance policy for covid remains a concern for traders as this represents a threat to the global supply chain. The PBOC is trying its best to keep the positive momentum by using various monetary policy tools such as cutting reserve ratios for banks and other measures. The bank has said that it will increase support for the economy, especially those industries which are under Covid’s influence.
The Asian stock market, which tumbled yesterday due to the fear that Covid is spreading once again more quickly in China, is in recovery mode today. The Hang Seng index has jumped 1.89%; the Nikkei is up 0.80% at the press time.