Wall Street opens in negative territory, as announced by the pre-market phase in the wake of the poor result of the Asian stock exchanges. Trading was also affected by the trend in Treasury yields, which continued to rise on expectations of a more restrictive monetary policy. The Dow Jones opened 0.12% lower, the S&P 500 opened 0.16% lower, while the Nasdaq Composite is 0.24% lower.
In Tokyo, investors looked above all to the rise in oil prices and the new depreciation of the yen, at its lowest against the dollar in 20 years. The Nikkei benchmark index lost 0.98% to 26,799.71, with a loss of 293 points. On the foreign exchange market, the Japanese currency continues to depreciate against the dollar, at 126.60, and against the euro at 136.70.
Contrasting closings for Chinese stock exchanges
Closing contrasted for the Chinese stock exchanges, with the unknown of the repercussions linked to the various lockdowns in the country due to the wave of Covid-19: the Shanghai Composite index drops 0.49%, to 3,195.52 points, while that of in Shenzhen rose by 0.43% to 2,022.52. Investors were also affected by the decision on Friday by the Central Bank of China which surprisingly did not touch the rates on medium-term loans (Mlf), leaving them at 2.85%, limiting the coefficient of interest by 0.25% instead. compulsory reserve (RRR) for banks, freeing up resources of 83.2 billion dollars, less than the markets expected. The central government, in addition to its annual growth target of 5.5%, has embarked on a cycle of monetary easing: last week it explicitly mentioned the injection of more liquidity with the reduction of the reserve requirement, sealing the first move of the its kind in 2022.
Bitcoin at a one-month low
Bitcoin fell to its lowest level in over a month, in a scenario of general suffering for cryptocurrencies, penalized by investors’ risk aversion. The largest token in the crypto market fell as much as 4.2% to $ 38,580 on Monday. The second largest, Ether, fell 4.7% to $ 2,902. The value of the global cryptocurrency market has dropped roughly 4% in the past 24 hours to $ 1.9 trillion, according to prices from CoinGecko.
Oil prices are falling
Oil prices drop on a day of reduced trading for the Easter Monday holiday, when European markets are closed. The WTI of Texas lost 0.47% to 106.45 while the Brent of the North Sea fell below 112 to 111.18 dollars.
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