It’s been a busy day trading as traders digest the latest news from across the globe. Here’s a summary of the major news from across the markets today:
Markets Dip on Inflation Concerns but France sees “Relief Rally”
The markets slid today as fears of rising consumer prices weighed on markets. The S&P 500 opened down by over 50 points and was accompanied by a drop in the DAX (down 0.64%) and FTSE 100 (down 0.67%).
The CAC was slightly up however (up 0.36%), as President Emmanual Macron’s better-than-expected performance in the first round of the French presidential election was welcomed by investors in a small “relief rally.”
Macron was projected to receive 27.8% of the first round vote and advance to the second round of the election where he will face Marine La Pen who was projected to receive 23.2% of the vote. The margin between the two protagonists was slightly higher than expected and has given investors hope that Macron will go on to secure victory in the second round. He is widely seen to have more pro-EU policies than his rival.
Elsewhere, weak economic data in the UK with GDP up just 0.1% in February versus forecasts of 0.2%, coupled with weakening energy stocks led to a drop in UK markets on Monday.
Tech Stocks Fall
Major tech stocks also dropped in early trading as inflation continues to dominate market sentiment, with Apple (AAPL) -1.83%, Meta (FB) -1.44%, Amazon (AMZN) -1.87% and Alphabet (GOOGL) -2.63% all down amid the wider market selloff.
Twitter (TWTR) however was ahead in early trading, up 1.43% after it was announced Tesla CEO Elon Musk would not be joining Twitter’s board after all, despite statements to the contrary last week.
Crypto Gets Hammered
There was more pain in the cryptocurrency markets as negative sentiment weighed heavily on tokens across the board. Bitcoin (BTC) fell -4.67% to $40,803 whilst Ethereum dipped -7.70% to $3,022. That means the world’s two largest cryptocurrencies are both down by more than 10% over the last seven days.
There was little cheer anywhere at the head of the crypto market as all of the top 25 coins have fallen over the last 24 hours.
Gold Remains Steady
Gold saw little movement as trading opened for the week, down -0.31% to $1941 but it continues to hold relatively steady and has posted solid gains for the year to date.
Oil Rises
Oil continues to fall as expectations of greater supply, particularly from the US, dominate traders’ thinking at the start of the week. US Crude was down -4.09% to $93.73 in early trading, whilst Brent Crude was down 4.17% to $98.06.
The Week Ahead
It’s due to be a busy week ahead for the markets with US inflation data due on Tuesday and earnings season getting underway on Wall Street. Stay tuned for the latest news on all developments in the markets.
* Please note all figures are correct at the time of writing. Data collected from third-party sources. Nothing in this market update is intended as advice or recommendations and is for information purposes only.
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