Investors doubt and China operates at half capacity

Before investors could relax and believe that the worst was over, a new portion of reasons for concern arrived. It is about spreading the epidemic outside of China. Recall that almost 99% of everything related to COVID-19 took place in China. And investors at some point decided that everything that happens in China remains in China.

Yesterday forced some to reconsider their position. The number of people infected in South Korea rose sharply (it jumped from 32 to 82 in a day, but more importantly, most of the newly diagnosed cases were parishioners of one church, where about 1,000 people were present at the time of infection, that is, we can expect a further increase in the number infected) and Japan (more than twice as many as 84 people jumped in a week), the first deaths appeared in Japan and Iran. All this makes us think about the spread of the epidemic around the world with all that it implies.

By the way, about the resulting. China very clearly demonstrates what price has to be paid. Goldman Sachs experts analyzed data on a number of direct and indirect indicators, in particular, statistics on finished goods production, demand for steel and its reserves, coal consumption and real estate sales in China, and a number of other indicators, and concluded that economic activity in China does not exceed 50% of the average indicators of past years.

That is, as we warned, it is too early to relax, the events are still in the process of development, and their consequences will become clear only after some time.

Against this background, gold traditionally feels comfortable, which continues to stubbornly move towards the goal that we voiced a few weeks ago (1800 mark). But the yen’s problems continue and there are active rumors in the market that the currency is losing the status of an asset-refuge.

Despite the current problems of the yen and the high likelihood of its further decline, sales of the USDJPY pair above 112 look too tempting to not try to catch a u-turn with small stops. Moreover, today is Friday - potentially the day of profit-taking. And the yen has something to fix.

Considering how depressing statistics have recently been from the Eurozone, one can expect another batch of weak data from Europe and a new round of euro sales. So you can even sell the EURUSD pair without waiting for the data.

In addition to the euro, today we will sell oil, a pair of USDJPY (above 112), buy GBPUSD with small stops, and also look for opportunities for buying gold.