Economic Updates

Economic Updates

Consumer confidence at 10-year high

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment is lifted by 4.1% to 112 in December, reaching the highest level since 2010. The consumer confidence index hits a 10-year high indicating that sentiment has fully improved from the COVID recession. The highlights of the index are mainly centralized around the speed of the recovery see...

December 9, 2020
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Stock in News – Tesla and Amazon

Tesla Inc Tesla Inc, the electric car maker is set to join the S&P500 on December 21. The Company’s share price rallied following the announcement, highlighting the dominance of mega-cap growth stocks on the S&P500 benchmark. The Company also received a trading upgrade to a buy-equivalent citing “the company on the verge of a profound...

November 20, 2020
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Vaccine News Boosts Pharmaceuticals

2020 will go down in history as the year of the pandemic. With the ''second wave'' of COVID-19 sweeping the planet and more national lockdowns announced around the globe, there is not much to look forward to now. However, there is a glimpse of hope that we may be able to return to some normality soon. That hope? A vaccine. Pharmaceutical compan...

November 17, 2020
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15 Asia-Pacific Countries Sign World’s Largest Free Trade Agreement at a Crucial Time

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (“RCEP”) The RCEP agreement is a modern and comprehensive regional free trade agreement covering trade in goods, trade in services, investment, economic and technical cooperation, and new rules for electronic commerce, intellectual property, government procurement, competition, and small and medium-...

November 17, 2020
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NIO Making Waves

The sales of electric cars exceeded the two million mark for the first time in 2019. By far the biggest electric automaker by market cap is Elon Musk's Tesla. Its current market cap stands at $394.26 billion at the time of writing this, putting the electric automaker at the top of all automakers in the world. However, there is another electric c...

November 12, 2020
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October: US Stimulus Noises and National Lockdowns

Another Volatile Month for Markets The financial markets were rattled by another wild month driven by geopolitics and COVID-19 updates. As the month comes to an end, the rapid resurgence of the coronavirus cases across the US, European countries, India and Russia have forced some leaders to reimpose national lockdowns. Global Equities The back-an...

October 30, 2020
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US Election 2020: Eyes on the US Senate

The Political Event of the Year 2020 The most-awaited political event of the year 2020 is just around the corner: the US Presidential elections will take place next Tuesday on the 3rd of November. The US politics have the potential to affect the global economy, alliances and trade agreements which makes it a Global Event. In a pandemic-induced ...

October 30, 2020
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Earnings to Watch This Week: Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet

Investors are gearing up for one of the busiest weeks of the third-quarter earnings season. The immediate focus will be on the tech leaders: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet as those companies were among the main drivers of the rebound in the US stock market after March lows. The world has gone remote- people were suddenly forced to work, s...

October 27, 2020
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PayPal Taps into Crypto

Buy, Hold and Sell Cryptocurrency  PayPal officially confirmed its entrance in the cryptocurrency market on Wednesday. The leading online payments company announced the launch of a new service enabling its customers to buy, hold, and sell digital currency on its site and applications. The message of the CEO was clear that the Company is keen in...

October 22, 2020
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US Corporate Earnings to Watch this Week

Aside from politics and virus concerns, attention will be on the US corporate earnings season. After major US banks reported their third-quarter earnings results, investors will eye Netflix reports among many others. Monday International Business Machines (IBM): The company will host a conference call to review third-quarter 2020 financial resul...

October 19, 2020
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Coming Up This Week: US Big Banks on the Radar

The third-quarter earnings season will kickstart with major US banks. In an ultra-low interest rates environment, the financial industry struggled faced by a series of pressures triggered by the ongoing pandemic crisis. Over the months, banks had made significant provisions for credit losses and saw major declines in asset management revenues. I...

October 12, 2020
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September: A Typical Scary Month for Investors

Poor Month for Markets Investors are generally apprehensive of the month of September as on average it is marked as the worst month for the stock market. After a staggering rally in August driven by broad-based vaccine optimism, global stimulus, improving economic data, better-than-expected earnings season and the outperformance of the technology...

September 30, 2020
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Interest Rates: Ultra Low, Near Zero or Negative?

In a pandemic-induced environment, central banks and governments have absorbed all the shocks of the virus on the financial markets by injecting massive liquidity in the economy, keeping credit flowing and supporting the global economy with huge fiscal stimulus plans to manage an unparalleled health and economic crisis. Governments and Central ...

September 22, 2020
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Laybuy (ASX: LBY): Another ASX BNPL

After a solid debut on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) earlier this week, New Zealand buy now pay later company went on a volatile ride for its first week. Following the completion of an initial public offering (IPO) that raised A$80m at A$1.41/share with an indicative market capitalisation of A$246m under the code LBY, the Company comm...

September 10, 2020
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PM Shinzo Abe’s Resignation, Abenomics, and Berkshire Hathaway Buys Stakes in Five Japanese Companies

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister officially resigned on Friday due to health issues after a few weeks of speculations. Amid a global pandemic, markets fret that his resignation may create a new period of political uncertainty for Japan. Since the announcement, a few ministers from the ruling party expressed the...

August 31, 2020
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