Asia – Bleeding red

Asian markets are in the midst of a downturn this morning, with the Nikkei down 0.65%, Chinese indexes down across the board, most notably the SZSE component which is losing a full %1. In Hong-Kong the Hang Seng is fairing even worse – losing 1.65% so far.

The one saving grace for the region today seems to be the ASX which is slightly up at 6018.50.

Europe – A big day ahead for the UK

European indices had a banner day yesterday, with nearly all wrapping up trade on gains ranging from 0.47% (for the Dax) through 0.90% (for the CAC 40) all the way up to the FTSE that gained over a full per cent, finishing the day up 1.14% at 6,036.

Euro markets will remain on alert today as a slew of announcements are due throughout the day: the BOE’s monetary policy report, Interest rate decision and Governor Bailey’s speech will likely set the tone for British Trading, with German and Italian markets awaiting official numbers on factory and industrial reports.

Americas – An NFP waiting pattern

Another banner day for US stock markets yesterday as the Dow Jones finished rising 1.39% with the Nasdaq and S&P also registering more modest gains at 0.52% and 0.64% respectively.

Naturally, American markets and traders will be glued to their screens and waiting for any shred of information about the latest unemployment figures due around mid-day GMT and tomorrow’s NFP release which may set the tone for a weekend of debates about the need for further COVID-19 stimulus packages.

Commodities – Another golden day

Gold continued its recent rise, gaining another 0.24% to climb over 2043.50, completing a stellar rise of 4.44% for the past week and 14.54% over the last 30 days.

But both Brent and WTI were slightly less fortunate on the day, losing a modest 0.11% and 0.3% respectively.

Corporate – A Microsoft-TikTok deal after all?

Microsoft seems to have taken a couple of days away from the negotiating table due to President Trump’s weekend tweets about potentially banning TikTok in the US, but they resumed talks yesterday and appeared ready to fork over roughly $30 Billion for the video-based social media network, with reports indicating that a deal could be struck within 2-3 weeks at most.

News that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will be selling off about $3 billion worth of shares for the online retail giant did not deter anyone, with the company’s stock climbing a further 2.11% on the day.

Today’s quarterly reports will come from the likes of T-Mobile, Rio Tinto, Siemens, Yelp, Uber and Nintendo to name but a few.

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