The U.S. holiday and a sparse economic calendar will cause the London Stock Market to begin negatively today. And the knock on impact of the US closure has already sent shockwaves across Asia.
Significantly, the markets with the most movement are the ones that don’t rely on the US economy or aren’t propped up regimes. With all the Stock markets in Africa seeing positive growth today.
Asian markets started slowly amid fading hopes for early global rate cuts. Oil prices edged down in thin trade.
UK property market sees growth after 6 months
Home prices in Britain rose annually for the first time in six months, driven by increased demand from buyers, as mortgage rates have settled.
Prices climbed by 0.9% from January, consistent with the 10-year average monthly rise of 1.0% in February.
Zelensky’s crusade against Putin is putting the EU in debt
EU nations that were traditionally more conservative over how they spend their money did not want to tap capital markets together with the rest of the bloc.
And a debate is raging through the alleys in Brussels, should the EU borrow more collectively form global markets or should they stay prudent? The divide is that obvious, the smaller members want to leverage the EU’s spending power whilst the larger members, who can borrow without the EU, don’t.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in an interview with Bloomberg that joint bonds would be a good way to boost economic growth and citing the ‘keywords’ of the bloc’s defense capacities, as justification.
However, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was very clear when he would not support joint debt at the EU level.
Who will win, the bankers or the politicians?
Apple to be hit with a 500 million Euros fine
The Financial Times reported that the European Union is gearing up to levy a fine of around 500 million euros (equivalent to $539 million) against Apple for breaches of EU competition laws.
This penalty, expected to be announced early next month, marks the culmination of an antitrust investigation by the European Commission.
Crypto currency is flying
Despite the poor market trading today, cryptocurrencies have started trading spritely, with Bitcoin seeing over a 1% rise this morning.
Etherium is up by 1.6% today and a weekly growth of 12%.
Coinbase is also doing well, the company’s 4th Quarter revenue of $954 million was over $100 million above analyst predictions.
Gold is at one-week high as soft dollar, despite the turmoil caused by Israel
Gold prices rose to a nearly one-week high on Monday as a slight pullback in the U.S. dollar and escalating tensions in the Middle East lifted bullion’s safe-haven appeal.
Spot gold was up 0.3% at $2,019.99 per ounce, as of 0530 GMT, hitting its highest since Feb. 13.
U.S. gold futures rose 0.4% to $2,031.50 per ounce. This has been fuelled by a rise in demand in the Middle East. Israel, has ransacked Palestinian banks, homes and money exchanges and looted all the gold and money. Creating more demand in the region for gold bullion.