The historic meeting on Friday between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in took place in the neutral zone of Panmunjom, the site of the armistice that ended large-scale fighting in the Korean war in 1953. The summit was billed as a start to a formal end of the conflict. After oil and metal prices surged, the fear of rising inflation is back and brings the 10y Treasury yield above 3%. It has been almost 4 years since this level was touched and more then 6 years ago these were 'normal' levels. We see the entire yield curve creeping up and it is yet to be seen how the stock market will react on higher yields. After early 'fights' with the European Commission, regarding tax issues, Apple is once again being investigated by the EC due to the proposed takeover of Shazam. The commission is afraid there will be reduced choices for users of streaming services. Price for Shazam is expected to be around $400 million which Apple can easily pay out of their cash reserves. Shazam has over 1 billions users. The US, Britain and France on Friday night launched more than 100 missiles against Syrian targets in a strike against the Assad regime’s chemical weapons capabilities, but stopped short of attacking Russian or Iranian targets in order to avoid triggering a broader conflict. The western allies had “marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality,” Donald Trump said in a national television address. The strikes were in response to a suspected poison gas attack in the Syrian town of Douma last weekend that killed at least 70 people. “The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster instead,” said Mr Trump. Tensions are rising by the minute after President Trump tweeted that an attack on Syria is imminent. Russia already stated they will defend Syria and will shoot the US missiles out of the sky. Stock market reactions we're 'mild' but US markets suffered a loss in the range of 0.5-1.0%. The United Nations begged the Western coalition and Russia to be 'gentle' and not risk a more broader war. It was a repeat of the same somewhat questionable questions from Congressmen and women who do not have a great grasp of the details of how data flows through Facebook (few do). Or it could see a harder push around a more coherent vision of regulation for social media. Mark Zuckerberg remained composed throughout yesterday but his patience may be tested if he gets the same questions for another four hours today. US stocks tumbled more than 10 per cent from their recent highs, officially moving them into correction territory on the first day of the quarter as deepening declines for technology companies and rising trade tension between the US and China unnerved investors. The benchmark index fell 2.2 per cent on Monday, leaving it more than 10 per cent off its high in January, the technical definition of a correction, and putting it below its 200-day moving average, a key technical measure for momentum investors. The technology-heavy Nasdaq dropped 2.7 per cent, erasing its gains for the year. Anxieties were being exacerbated by Donald Trump’s tweets and trade policies. A fresh presidential Twitter swipe against Amazon sent its shares down 5.2 per cent. Tyson Foods, a leading US meat producer, fell 6.2 per cent as China placed tariffs on US pork imports in retaliation for Mr Trump’s duties on steel and aluminium. |
PurposeMajor markets news headlines which captured the markets. Archives
March 2021
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