Week Results: Virus, NFP, Pound & Investor Concerns

A week in the financial markets was held in the chronicles of the coronavirus. The epidemic is still under development. The number of deaths exceeded 700, and the number of deaths approached 40,000. A number of quarantined cities in China, many plants are idle, are already starting to disrupt the functioning of the global economy: some companies outside of China cannot continue the production process, since components from China do not arrive, some ( like Toyota and Honda) temporarily shut down their Chinese capacities and sharply lose in production volumes, some (like Apple) close their stores in China.

And if on Monday and Tuesday last week, the markets still tried to pretend that they did not notice this, then towards the end of the week even excellent NFP figures could not inspire American investors to buy on the stock market.

And although the VIX Fear Index fell by 15% over the week, there is a feeling that the time of unbridled euphoria in financial markets is coming to an end. And this means that now is the time to start opening short against risky assets. Moreover, the markets marked the highs, respectively, the points for placing stops are obvious, and the stops themselves are small especially with respect to the goals that can and should be set.

The week as a whole turned out to be very successful for the dollar and ended on a major note: NFP figures came out well above market expectations (+225K with a forecast of +165K). In principle, employment data from ADP (+291K) were prepared by the markets for good numbers, but until the very last it was difficult to believe in them. The overall view was somewhat spoiled by weaker than expected growth rates of hourly wages, as well as unemployment, which went above forecasts.

The main losers in the foreign exchange market were the euro and the pound. Traditionally, the reason for the sale of the euro was the weak macroeconomic statistics from the Eurozone. So German industrial production in December literally collapsed by 3.5% during a month, recalling that the recession is not just an economic term, but also one of the aspects of reality. As for the pound, the pressure on it was due to growing fears that the UK and the EU would not be able to agree on a trade agreement until the end of 2020.

Our trading plan for this week is next. We continue to look for points for purchases of gold and the Japanese yen anyway (unless an ultra-effective vaccine is found and the epidemic of coronavirus is quickly over). We will wait until the euphoria around the dollar subsides, and we will look for points for its sales. The pound is not bad, the Canadian dollar looks interesting. We won’t touch the euro - the single European currency seems too toxic in the light of the latest data from Germany. While oil is below 51.20 (WTI benchmark) - we sell it with stop-flips above 52. In general, the situation with oil looks rather uncertain. OPEC +’s decision to expand the decline in oil production by 600K bd is, under normal conditions, the strongest bullish signal.