Earlier today Australia shared its Westpac consumer confidence index for April, which is higher than last month’s. Then, the central bank of New Zealand decided to leave interest rates unchanged at 0.25%.
The remainder of the day will mostly be dominated by various speeches by members of several central banks. We expect to hear from the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank. Several members of the Federal Reserve will also speak later today, as the central bank publishes its beige book.
Today we expect US stock indices to trade with a mixed bias, with the Dow Jones slightly down at the session open, and Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 slightly up. Though stock indices responded well to the positive inflation data yesterday, now they are quieting down as the markets prepare for a flood of earnings reports.
The highlight of today’s Q1 company reports will come from the banking sector. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo are all due to report today.
The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is also making a few headlines as it announced that it will go public. The share price has been set at $250, so the company could get a valuation between $50 and $65 billion, depending on how well the IPO goes.
Coinbase’s public offering is helping cryptocurrencies to gain a wider acceptance among more traditional financial market participants. Bitcoin hit a high of over $64,000 on this news.
Meanwhile, the European Union’s struggles with the coronavirus pandemic continue. After the CDC and FDA advised that the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson stops being used on account of blood clot reports, J&J themselves stated they will not export vaccines to the EU out of caution over the drug’s safety.
The block was supposed to receive 50 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which were going to account for 20-25% of its total vaccination reserve in the second quarter of 2021.
Not only are those deliveries off the table, the European Commission also stated that the block will not sign a new contract with AstraZeneca after its currently agreed-upon vaccines are all delivered. It will also do the same with Johnson & Johnson.
As a result, this will leave the EU, a region already extremely behind on its own vaccination schedule, with just the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both of which have experienced delays in delivery. The Russian Sputnik V is currently being evaluated for approval by the European Medicines Agency.
