If stock markets were looking for a brief moment of respite before heading into the weekend, they unanimously failed to find it. The recent downtrend continued unabated on Friday as every single major index in the world closed in the red.
The Shanghai Composite Index closed down 3.4% on the week, slightly worse than the Nikkei 225, which lost 3.27%, but marginally better than the Hang Seng, itself losing 3.6%. The song remained the same in Europe with the FTSE, DAX and CAC40 losing 2.6%, 2.56% and 2.67% respectively over the course of the week. The dominoes continued to fall in the US: DJI down 1.61%, SPX down 2.39% and the Nasdaq Composite ending the week down 3.16%.
Not much happening in currencies this past week, although the Japanese Yen seems to be playing a game of getting as close to the 150 mark as possible without actually touching it. The doldrums did not extend to cryptocurrencies however as Bitcoin seemed determined to finally break the $30k resistance it has been hammering against all weekend.
Gold tried to reacquaint itself with the $2000 level during Friday’s session before tapering off slightly towards the end of the day to close the week at $1980 an ounce. Oil slowed down a little on Friday, traders at the mercy of developments in the Levant for the time being. The same can be said for markets in general as global attention turns towards the Mediterranean, where not one but two US aircraft carrier groups are amassing.
