The markets continue to feel confident about the end of the coronavirus pandemic in most of the developed countries, most notably in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and the EU.
Yesterday there were only 19.8K new coronavirus cases in the United States, the lowest in about one year. The trend of infections is a downward one, so even lower numbers might be reached soon.
The United Kingdom is also maintaining a daily infection rate of about 2,000, which is quite low, considering the peaks the country saw in previous months. These numbers were observed last summer before the discovery of the UK coronavirus variant, which was the first of the more highly contagious versions of the virus to appear in 2020.
The EU as a whole had around 25,000 new Covid-19 cases (spread across all 27 member states), which is close to 10 times less the number of cases seen during the peak of the pandemic earlier this year.
As a result of this optimism, risk appetite remains high. Stocks are doing very well: all major US stock indices will grow today, continuing yesterday’s trend.
Amazon might be one company to keep an eye on at the moment, because the tech giant is considering purchasing MGM Studios, which is likely going to facilitate the distribution of even more content for streaming via Amazon’s platform.
Thanks to the high risk appetite among investors, cryptocurrencies are recovering from their recent losses at present. Today Bitcoin has regained more than 5% of its value, though it remains below $40,000.
Some of the boost in cryptocurrencies came once again from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who announced that he will be meeting with some Bitcoin miners to discuss ways to continue their work in more environmentally-friendly ways.
Today’s economic calendar is rather scarce. Germany had several interesting reports published today: a lower than expected GDP growth rate in Q1 and an Ifo business climate index for May that was higher than anticipated. These mixed results indicate the huge differences between the EU in lockdown (earlier this year) and out of it.
The consumer confidence index for May will be published in the United States a bit later today.
As for geopolitical conflicts, the EU is once again at odds with Belarus, after a Ryanair plane flying over Belarus was grounded to allow the arrest of a Belarusian journalist who has been vocally opposed to Lukashenko’s regime. Belarus was already subject to a long list of sanctions by the EU, but these are about to become even stricter; the United States has also allied with the EU on this issue.
