The wheels are in motion in the markets as focus turns to China as risk of broad based Covid lockdowns in Beijing kick stocks lower and flow of funds moves in other markets.
China indices fell sharply with the Shanghai SSE composite index falling -5.13%. Hong Kongs Shangai index was tumbled -3.73%. Japan's Nikkei fell -1.9% and Australia's ASX/S&P 200 index fell -1.57%. European shares are lower and US indices - after their tumble of over 2.5% in the major indices on Fed tightening fears - are tacking on additional loses in pre-market trading. This week is the most important release week of the current quarter with Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Amazon all set to release results. That is just the start with Boeing, Paypal, servicenow, McDonalds, Merck, Intel, Twitter, Caterpillar, ExxonMobile also scheduled. Elon Musk and Twitter are talking and has those shares higher in pre-market trading.
The expected further slowdown in China has crude oil prices lower by over 4%. Yields are lower with the US yields down -10 basis points in the 5 year note.
The flow of funds in the forex has the JPY as strongest, followed by the other safe haven currencies, CHF and USD, also moving higher. The AUD is the weakest as it faces decreased demand from China (see the strongest to the weakest currencies above).
US Sec of State Blinken visited Ukraine over the weekend, with the US saying it is their intention to weaken Russia enough so they could not invade ever again (or any time soon).
Macron beat LePen fairly handily but the vote was closer vs the last run -off 5 years ago (59% vs 41% vs 66% vs 34%).
In other markets:
- Spot gold is trading down $-34 or -1.75% at $1896.10
- Spot silver is down $0.67 or -2.8% at $23.42
- crude oil is trading at $97.42 down $4.65 or 4.56%
- Bitcoin is trading down $526 from Sunday at $38,957.87
In the premarket for US stocks the major indices are lower after Friday's tumbles. The Dow's fall on Friday was the worst since October 2020. The Nasdaq index is now down over 20% from the all time high again (it fell as much at -22.5% on March 14).
- Dow industrial average -185 points after Friday's -981.36 point plunge
- S&P index -29 points after Friday's -121.88 point decline
- NASDAQ index -93 points after Friday's -335.36 point decline
The European indices are also lower
- German DAX, -1.04%
- France's CAC -1.6%
- UK FTSE -1.68%
- Spain's Ibex -0.3%
- Italy's FTSE MIB -1.2%
The US debt market, the yields are lower but off their low yield levels as investors worry about slower growth:
- two year 2.613%, -6.0 basis points
- five year 2.854% -8.1 basis points
- 10 year 2.829%, -7.4 basis points
- 30 year 2.90% -5.0 basis points
in the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are also lower on flight to safety flows and slower growth expectations:
