Equity Markets

Overnight on Wall St, we saw a mixed performance with the Dow Jones hitting record highs while the NASDAQ fell for its fourth straight day of losses – its longest losing streak since October’s investors weighed concerns over inflation and higher rates that might drag on growth stocks.

•         Dow Jones up 97 (0.3%)
•         NASDAQ down 51 (0.37%)
•         S&P 500 up 3 (0.07%)
•         Russell 2000 down 7 (0.31%) 

Vaccine makers, Pfizer (PFE) and Moderna (MRNA) suffered large intrasession dips as the Whitehouse announced that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines. The WTO and WHO have been behind the push to “open source” COVID vaccines to speed up delivery to developing nations.

The US reporting season continued with Paypal (PYPL) announcing earnings that blew past analysts estimates, almost doubling its earnings per share from a year ago.

General Motors (GM) also announced an earnings beat, driving its stock price up over 4% during the session.

Reporting tonight in the US we have NASDAQ listed Beyond Meat (BYND) after the closing bell.

In Australia, this morning we saw the last of the big four banks reporting with NAB announcing a 94 per cent jump in first-half earnings to $3.3 billion and doubling its first-half dividend to 60c, a share from the same period last year.

Economic Announcements – FX Markets

Tonight, out of the UK, the Bank of England will be releasing its Monetary Policy Report. This will be closely watched by traders and investors alike.

While there is no expectation of rate tightening announcements, it is tipped by some analysts that the BoE could announce a tapering timeline of its asset purchasing program. Any announcement in this regard should see a continuation of strength in GBP.

Also adding to potential volatility in GBP tonight is local elections being held across the UK. We have the Scottish elections and local council elections where the incumbent Tories are predicted to perform poorly.

Yesterday, saw much better than expected NZ employment figures released, with the Kiwi unemployment rate dropping to a better than expected 4.7%, NZDUSD rallied over 1% in yesterday’s session and showing continued strength this morning.

Friday, 7 April 2021 – Indicative Index Dividends
^{Dividends are in Points}

Symbol	Dividend
ASX200	0
WS30	12.221
US500	0.688
US2000	0.122
NDX100	2.982
CAC40	11.969
STOXX50	5.906
ESP35	0
ITA40	0
FTSE100	0
DAX30	0
HK50	0
JP225	0
INDIA50	0