Today China published inflation data for April. Both the MoM and YoY rates failed to meet the forecasts, casting a shadow over the pace of recovery in the only major economy that grew despite the pandemic. Still, the PPI went up higher than anticipated. New yuan loans are also up for publication later today.
Other news from China included a census that showed that the population is no longer growing at the expected rate, which is going to cause an imbalance between retirees and working age people in the future.
In Europe, the ZEW economic sentiment index is all the rage today. The eurozone-wide number of May is 84, significantly higher than the previous month, while in Germany the index was also better than the forecasts, coming in at 84.4.
Furthermore, several members of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States will speak later today. These are their first statements since Friday’s disappointing labor data, also coming in anticipation of tomorrow’s inflation reports from the US.
As far as the stock market is concerned, there are some downward tendencies today, largely due to the massive sell-off of tech stocks, something that happened earlier this year as well. Thus, today we expect all major US indices to drop slightly.
Cryptocurrencies are also moving downward due to their involvement in the most recent ransomware scandal. Colonial Pipeline Company, which is one of the main energy suppliers on the East coast of the United States, became the victim of a ransomware attack, with the hackers behind it asking to be paid in Bitcoin in order to yield control back to the company.
Cryptocurrencies are attractive to hackers and other Dark Web entities precisely because they are so hard to trace, which in turn is hurting their reputation. Bitcoin and Ethereum are both down today, though Dogecoin has recovered slightly due to yet another endorsement by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
As for CPC, it stated that the supply of oil and fuel in the US should be back to normal in a few days as it deals with the ransomware attack. President Biden got involved in the issue, hinting that Russia is probably behind the hack, adding tension to the already strained relationship between the two countries.
