Overnight on Wall Street: Tuesday 23 February 2021

23 February 2021 By Lachlan Meakin

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Equity markets

US markets were mixed last night, the S&P which recorded a fifth straight loss while the Dow Jones managed to hold on to a small gain. The biggest disconnect though was the tech heavy NASDAQ, slumping almost 2.5%. NASDAQ listed stocks such as Zoom, Amazon and Peloton, who have benefited greatly from COVID lockdown orders, dropped significantly as optimism in the battle against COVID saw investors rotating into more traditional cyclical stocks.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Federal Reserve

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell is scheduled to testify before the Senate banking committee tonight on monetary policy.

It is expected that Powell is likely to deliver a dovish message in his first testimony since Democrats took control of the Senate and White House. We could see some volatility in equities and the US dollar as investors digest his words and any deviation from his previous statements.

FX markets

US dollar weakness continued with all major currencies performing well against the greenback with the stand out of the last few sessions being the Aussie dollar.

AUDUSD again rallied strongly, continuing the move on Friday when it broke the important resistance level of 78 US cents.

Persistently high commodity prices and rapid economic recovery in Australia and our biggest trading partner China have provided a strong tailwind for the Aussie.

Source: GO MT4

Gold

Spot gold (XAUUSD) bounced strongly off the support levels that were set in November 2020. Buyers jumping in at support paired with US dollar weakness pushed Gold higher, rallying around 1.8% on the session.

Source: GO MT4

Bitcoin

Bitcoin (BTCUSD) again showed how volatile it can be with some wild swings in price yesterday. The Crypto opening on Monday at an all time high of over 57K USD then proceeded to crash to a low of 47K USD after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that bitcoin is an “extremely inefficient” way to conduct monetary transactions. Only then to bounce back to 54K USD as dip buyers swooped in.

Source: GO MT4

Wednesday, 24 February 2021 
Indicative Index Dividends
Dividends are in Points
ASX200 WS30 US500 US2000 NDX100 CAC40 STOXX50
3.391 0 0.048 0.058 0.275 0 0
ESP35 ITA40 FTSE100 DAX30 HK50 JP225 INDIA50
0 0 0 0 0 0 0.217


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