Trading Review: Ongoing Reports, Trends, Indices, Stocks, Bonds, Forex and Commodities and Analyst Recommendations
07:30
Trading on the Asian stock markets is taking place this morning in a mixed trend. The Nikkei is up 0.6%, while Shenzhen in China is up 0.2% while Shanghai and Hong Kong are down 0.2% and 1.2% respectively. Most of the declines in the Heng Seng index are led by Chinese technology giants, including Alibaba, which lost 3.9%, Shiomi and Tencent, which weakened by 2% and Maitouan, which lost 1.8%. In banks, Heng Seng Bank falls 3.2%, Chinese Industrial Bank loses 1.6% and Bank of China sheds 0.4%.
According to data released this morning, China’s economy grew by only 0.4% in the second quarter (at an annual rate), missing market forecasts that assumed GDP would increase by 1%. In the second quarter alone, Chinese GDP cut by 2.6%, with The expectation was for a decrease of 1.5%. During the quarter, China struggled with the re-emergence of the corona, which was the worst since the plague peak in early 2020, bringing with it many restrictions in the economy and factory closures.
A positive bright spot can be found in the June retail sales data which surprised surprisingly and rose 3.1%, thus beating forecasts that estimated a 0.3% decline at an annual rate, and recovered from the low recorded in May – then they plunged 6.7%.
On Wall Street futures are trading up slightly 0.3% -0.4%, after a mixed close last night. Although the trading day opened yesterday with sharp declines, as the trade progressed there was a moderation in the negative trend. At the end, the Nasdaq index rose slightly, the S&P 500 fell 0.3% and the Dow Jones fell 0.5%. In the bond market, the bond yield for a decade weakened slightly this morning to 2.94%, and the two-year bond yield also fell 3.12%.
In the foreign exchange trading arena the euro is up 0.1% against the dollar but is still trading at a very low level of $ 1.002 per euro.
In the commodity market, US oil contracts are up 0.6% at $ 96.3 a barrel, and Brent is up 0.9% to $ 99.9 a barrel. Unchanged gold around $ 1,708.
In crypto, there is a positive trend, with Bitcoin climbing 2.2% to $ 20.6 thousand, while Etherium jumps 8.3% to $ 1,205. The ripple also jumps sharply to 34 cents and the solo progresses by 8% and trades for $ 37.4.