Equity Markets

US equity markets declined for a second straight day in a volatile session with stocks giving up earlier gains to a steep drop into the close.

• Dow Jones down 267 (0.78%)
• NASDAQ down 75 (0.56%)
• S&P 500 down 35 (0.85%)
• Russell 2000 down 16 (0.73%)

The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose for much of the session until poor showings from heavyweights Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Facebook (FB), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN) dragged the index down into a late day sell-off.

Coinbase (COIN) stock fell 3.7% to 239, hitting a fresh record low since its April 14 debut on the continuing selloff in Cryptocurrencies.

Inflation fears continued to weigh on stocks, they also weren’t helped by comments from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about the benefits of higher corporate taxes in a speech before the Chamber of Commerce.

Economic Announcements – FX

Inflation will be in focus in today’s economy with CPI figures scheduled for release from the U.K., Eurozone and Canada.

Analysts’ expectations are for sharply higher readings, in line with the US figures released last week which could give short term boosts to their respective currencies.

Overnight we also have the FOMC meeting minutes scheduled for release. After April’s fairly benign minutes, a lot has changed in respect to inflation expectations and traders will be scrutinizing the comments made by Fed officials at the latest meeting for clues on how much inflation the FOMC is willing to tolerate.

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin has continued its decline since hitting a high of nearly 65k USD in mid-April. BTCUSD traded below $43,000 Tuesday night, close to Monday’s multi-month low of $42k USD.

Bitcoin has struggled to recover after Tesla founder Elon Musks tweets last week and over the weekend disparaging the cryptocurrency and its environmental impact.

Thursday, 20 May 2021 – Indicative Index Dividends
^{Dividends are in Points}

Symbol	Dividend
ASX200	0.313
WS30	15.857
US500	0.494
US2000	0.133
NDX100	0.152
CAC40	0
STOXX50	0.785
ESP35	5.876
ITA40	0
FTSE100	9.23
DAX30	0
HK50	15.577
JP225	0
INDIA50	0