Growth concerns were somewhat alleviated after the PBOC followed through and cut the RRR rate as speculated. Much of this week’s weakness in stocks stemmed from rising coronavirus cases in various countries, so yesterday’s news that Pfizer is planning to begin testing of a Delta-specific booster shot provided optimism for winning the war against COVID. Pfizer is seeking to have the vaccine booster shot to get EUA in August.
Both the S&P 500 index and Dow Jones Industrial Average got their respective grooves back as investors still have to favor the US growth story against what is happening in both Asia and Europe.
The 10-year Treasury yield is now almost 10 basis points higher from yesterday’s low, settling just below the 1.35% level.
Anticompetitive
President Biden will sign an executive order that will tackle anticompetitive practices in Big-Tech, pharma, and a number of various sectors. Business lobbies are standing up against this potential crackdown as it could really disrupt mergers and acquisitions.
China Cuts
In less than 48 hours, China has quickly delivered on a pledge to cut the reserve requirement ratio used by banks. This is not a broad-based rate cut but it does provide some support to banks. Slightly softer than expected inflation data paved the way for the RRR cut of 50 basis points. This was the first cut since early in the COVID-19 pandemic and it helped weaken the dollar against its major trading partners.
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Ed Moya
His particular expertise lies across a wide range of asset classes including FX, commodities, fixed income, stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Over the course of his career, Ed has worked with some of the leading forex brokerages, research teams and news departments on Wall Street including Global Forex Trading, FX Solutions and Trading Advantage. Prior to OANDA he worked with TradeTheNews.com, where he provided market analysis on economic data and corporate news.
Based in New York, Ed is a regular guest on several major financial television networks including CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Yahoo! Finance Live, Fox Business, cheddar news, and CoinDesk TV. His views are trusted by the world’s most respected global newswires including Reuters, Bloomberg and the Associated Press, and he is regularly quoted in leading publications such as MSN, MarketWatch, Forbes, Seeking Alpha, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Ed holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University.
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