Market Overview by eToro

The Jobs numbers on Friday were great!

The headline number, 235 Thousand Jobs added in February far surpassed analysts estimates, but wage growth was a bit less than expected.

Stocks on Wall Street managed to chug a green day out but ended up at a loss for the week, the first weekly loss since the Dow 20k party in January.

Stocks in Asia this morning are mixed, with mild gains in China, mild losses in Australia, and the Japanese are completely flat.

The big concern, Oil remains below $50 a barrel due to record-setting oversupply in the United States. The US Dollar is also under pressure as we head out this week and gold is gaining on the weak dollar, back above $1200 an ounce.

The markets look ahead to the Fed who are fully expected to raise the interest rates in the US on Wednesday and President of the ECB Mario Draghi will be speaking today at 13:30 GMT.

Weekend Trading
We had a lot of fun last weekend trading on Bitcoin. Unfortunately, the SEC declined the ETF that we were hoping for. The news caused a rather large spike down but as we can see, the price has fully recovered already and is now trading exactly where it was before the decision.

This is a perfect example of the old statement and as with almost all investing. The longer the timeframe that you’re looking at investing, the less all these short term announcements and events impact your bottom line.

The newer cryptocurrency on the block is doing fantastic. Ethereum is up $8 a coin so far today making one of the biggest moves since inception. 🙂

Nothing Common About It
After the vote in the House of Lords last week, Theresa May’s Brexit Bill now goes back to the House of Commons today.

The Bill itself is very short. It simply states that the UK can leave the EU. The Lords wanted to make a few changes though, adding a bit of complexity and giving themselves a bit more influence over the process.

The Lords can afford to play around they are appointed by the queen and not elected by the people. The Commons, on the other hand, have to answer directly to their constituents. So when people say Brexit, they feel compelled to comply.

The wide expectation is that the Commons will throw out the changes made by the Lords and pass the Brexit Bill without any further friction.

Technically speaking, the Brexit could happen tomorrow but that does seem a bit rushed. May still has another two and a half weeks to make her March deadline and I expect she’ll want to use them wisely.

With a clearer forecast for Brexit, the British Pound is up today…

Mati Greenspan – Senior Market Analyst – eToro