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Covid Role Reversal

Covid Role Reversal

Headline this week:

Equities had a volatile week again with declines over the first three sessions that were largely made up over Thursday and Friday. The recently unloved NASDAQ saw a big gain over the last two sessions as well. US yields were range-bound with the yield curve getting a little steeper and the 10Y back in the 1.6-1.7% band for now.

Market updates:

Crude was unchanged on the week too around the 65 levels (WTI). Gold is threatening to break higher past the recent 1840 resistance and Bitcoin briefly dipped below 45k on the weekend on another Elon linked tweet that implied Tesla may have sold out of its Bitcoin position.The Covid recovery picture globally is seeing some role reversal at the moment. NY's subway system will resume its trademark 24-hour operation today and schools and commercial establishments are expected to open this week. The UK is implementing a 3 tier travel system with other countries and the recent data have found vaccines to be effective against the Indian variant as well. Singapore and Taiwan are two nations considered to have moved the fastest to stem the spread last year but they are now seeing a simultaneous resurgence. Daily cases in Taiwan hit 200 yesterday and Singapore has reimposed restrictions for a month starting today to nip 11 unrelated clusters in the bud. Such instances, including India's current situation, provide a fair warning against complacency in the face of the pandemic.We have April activity data from China this morning, where the expectations of steady, stable growth continue. Consumer spending is likely to pick up the slack from factory production and central bank (PBoC) as already started tapering monetary policy - by reducing liquidity levels in the system. We also have inflation data from Europe and Canada this week, following last week's US surge higher. PMI data out across Europe on Friday will also give us a better picture of evolving expectations.

By

Kristal Advisors

May 17, 2021

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