Market Update

Wall Street’s biggest players have had a rough start to the year. All the biggest US banks saw negative profits in the first three months of 2022, ending a pandemic-era boom.Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo all announced large year-over-year profit declines in their first-quarter earnings reports Thursday, …

China surpassed the United States to become the European Union’s (EU) largest trading partner in 2020-21 thanks to strong demand during the pandemic. Despite EU frustrations with Beijing over its stance on the Ukraine war, trade ties will be hard to break, regardless of attempts by EU policymakers to diversify …

The Russian economy is poised to collapse this year after the U.S. and its European allies hit the Kremlin with a slew of crippling financial penalties over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Russian manufacturing activity plunged in March, contracting at the sharpest pace since May 2020 as businesses confronted a …

Crypto markets continued a second day of slide on Friday as bitcoin hovered above pivotal support at $40,000 in European hours, data show.Bitcoin bounced to $40,100 early Friday, after losing 2.9% Thursday. Some analysts are still bullish on the future prices of the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is trading near …

The European Union has started drafting its proposal for an embargo on Russian oil imports as its latest response to the war in Ukraine, the New York Times reported, citing Brussels officials and diplomats.The embargo will most likely be introduced in a gradual way, similar to the planned Russian coal …

The size of China’s economy was $17.7 trillion in 2021, according to official figures, so 5.5 percent growth would mean about $1 trillion more in 2022. Using growth in 2019 as a basis for comparison, business investment in China would need to contribute about 1.5 percentage points toward the 5.5 …

The GBP/USD pair is gaining up some 0.18% in the week amidst a thin liquidity trading session. A buoyant US dollar and risk-aversion weighed on the British pound in the week. GBP/USD Price Forecast: To remain downward biased but a double bottom looms.The British pound remains defensive, trading below the …

Since the outburst of the war in East Europe, markets have massively increased their expectations for key US interest rates. This can be seen, among other things, in the rise in the yield on the 2-year US Treasury bond by around 0.9%% in just a few weeks.The basis for this …

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced on Friday that it will cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for all banks by 25 basis points (bps) effective from April 25.The PBOC further noted that it will cut RRR by an additional 25 bps for some smaller banks and noted that …

Japan’s Industry Ministry said on Friday it will release six million barrels of oil from privately owned reserves, as part of its contribution to the second round of coordinated withdrawals from reserves led by the International Energy Agency to cool crude prices. Japan will release the amount of oil, which …