Market Update

European stocks closed Thursday on a mixed note, amid anticipation for the developments of the Coronavirus pandemic across the continent. The STOXX Europe 600 index rose by 0.5%, with the banking sector leading the gains and adding 2.7%. The French index CAC40 finished higher by 0.82%, while the German index …

Natural gas inventories in the United States decreased by 192 Bcf during the week ending on January 29, according to data by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Working natural gas in storage stood at 2,689 Bcf as of last Friday. This represents an increase of 41 Bcf compared with …

Factory orders in the United States increased for the eighth consecutive month during December, rising by 1.1%, following a 1.3% rise in November, data by the U.S. Department of Commerce showed on Thursday. Factory shipments grew by 1.7% in December and unfilled orders declined by 0.3%. Orders for durable goods …

There were 779,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending January 30, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) showed on Thursday. This reading followed the previous print of 812,000 (revised from 847,000) and came in better than the market expectation of …

The Bank of England said UK banks will need at least six months to prepare for the switch to negative interest rates. This was after the bank fixed interest rates at 0.1%. The Bank of England asked British banks in October about their preparedness for negative interest rates, after it …

The International Monetary Fund has said it is launching a new approach to assessing debt sustainability for countries that are able to access financial markets with the goal of predicting the risks of financial crises more accurately and improving transparency. Fund officials said that it is expected to activate an …

The Bank of England’s (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.10% at its January policy meeting and kept the Asset Purchase Facility steady at £895 billion.

The cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, rose by more than 50% after US billionaire Elon Musk showed his support on Twitter, two days after announcing that he would be away from the social networking site for “a while.” Dogecoin jumped to $0.05,798, according to data on the blockchain and cryptocurrency site CoinDesk. Tesla …

Retail Sales in the euro area rose by 2% on a monthly basis in December, the data published by the Eurostat showed on Thursday. This reading followed November’s contraction of 5.7% and came in better than the market expectation of 1.6%. On a yearly basis, Retail Sales increased by 0.6% …

The dollar rose to its highest in more than two months against the euro and the yen on Thursday (February 4th), as pessimism about the outlook for the US economy subsided before the publication of important data on the jobs market. The pound fell against the dollar, but it is …