Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg
The dollar continued to slide, weakening to its lowest level in two and a half years. The S&P 500 futures index rose, while most Asian stocks advanced in narrow trading on the last day of 2020.
Shares rose in Hong Kong and China. They fell in Australia. Markets in Japan and South Korea are closed. The S&P 500 futures rose further after US stocks rose earlier, with low-cap stocks outperforming. Volumes were light during the holiday week, trading the S&P 500 shares by about 25% below the 30-day average. Bitcoin has extended its record rally to exceed $ 29,000 before retiring.
Investors have pushed risky assets, including equities, to high valuations this year, based on expectations that the large-scale distribution of vaccines in 2021 will boost economic growth and increase corporate profits amid unprecedented incentives. The MSCI Global Global Equity Index will end the year at or near a record high, after rising by about 14% in 2020, after rising by almost 68% from the March low.
“Investors continue to weigh in on hopes of stimulating the pandemic’s negative developments,” Tom Essaye, a former Merrill Lynch trader who founded The Sevens Report, wrote to clients. “Markets had an aggressive price for a positive resolution to these events (and not only) in 2021.”
On the coronavirus front, the new strain of Covid-19 first identified in the UK is appearing in other parts of the world. The highly transmissible variant was found in California and a second possible case is being investigated in Colorado. Two people in Singapore could have it. Covid cases in New York are approaching an average seven-day positivity rate of 8%, the highest in seven months. California reported 432 deaths from the virus on Tuesday, setting a daily record. The AstraZeneca Plc-University of Oxford vaccine has been phased out for use in the UK, adding a homemade weapon to help slow the pandemic.
Elsewhere, the Bloomberg dollar gauge fell to its lowest level since April 2018 as traders placed foreign exchange positions before the end of the year amid slim liquidity. The pound rose after the British Parliament approved Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal.
One year after the first signs of a deadly virus appeared in Wuhan, China, the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says in an end-of-year address that there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Here are some key events that occur:
- Initial US unemployment figures are released on Thursday.
- Most global stock markets are closed on Friday for New Year’s Day.
These are the main movements in the markets:
Inventories
- The S&P 500 futures index rose 0.1% since 12:48 in Sydney. The S&P 500 gained 0.1%.
- The Australian S & P / ASX 200 index fell 0.6%.
- Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.6%.
- The Shanghai Composite Index gained 1%.
currencies
- The yen was at 103.15 per dollar.
- The offshore yuan traded at $ 6.5041 a dollar.
- The Bloomberg Dollar Spot index fell 0.2%.
- The euro was $ 1,2303.
- The pound was $ 1.3643, up 0.1%.
BONDS
- The 10-year Treasury yield fell one basis point on Wednesday to 0.92%. They will not trade until London opens due to a holiday in Tokyo.
- Australia’s 10-year bond yield fell to 0.97%.
commodities
- West Texas Intermediate Oil fell 0.3% to $ 48.26 a barrel.
- Gold was steady at $ 1,895.89 an ounce.