Hi Everyone,
Are sick of hearing about fake news? How about reading it?
It seems that a new startup in Poland was so tired worrying about this that they came up with a solution. Why not put all the news on the blockchain??
The program called Userfeeds will be built on top of the Ethereum network and will incentivise users to rank content based on its accuracy and not by shock value, as most social networks currently do.
This is just one example of how the over the next few years we will likely see a massive migration from regular Internet to blockchain based technology.
–Mati
Today’s Highlights
- Oil Crash
- $5 Billion Day
- Yellen on NFP
Please note: All data, figures & graphs are valid as of May 5th. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you can afford to lose.
Market Overview
Some reassuring results are now coming out of the UK. Yesterday they held local elections across the region, which is said to give us an insight about how people will be voting in the general elections on June 8th.
So far, it’s Theresa May with a strong hand. The votes are still being counted but early indications are very good for the conservative party. Yet to be counted are the Scottish votes, which are arguably the most dangerous ones for May.
Going into election weekend, everything looks quiet in France, too quiet…
According to a recent poll from Goldman Sachs, 15% of participants feel that Marin Le Pen’s chances of victory are 50-50. Most betting sites are currently putting her odds at about 1:10, which is still not unthinkable.
The markets are currently putting her odds far less than that. Gold has been falling for the past two weeks and the USDJPY has been climbing. These are the two biggest indications of a ‘risk on’ market. Though we have seen a bit of a reversal in the past few hours, the European Indices just opened with full confidence.
Warning: Depending on the result of the French elections, there is a possibility of some extremely wide gaps over the weekend.
Huge Moves in Crypto-land
Some wild action going on in the cryptocurrency markets right now.
Yesterday saw bitcoin $1623 a coin before a massive pullback. The retracement lasted about two hours and from peak to trough we’re looking at a movement of $179.
About 30% of the volume in eToro was closed at Stop Loss. The good news is that most of the Stop Losses were set in profits. 🙂
For now, many are on the fence waiting for a good spot to get back in.
Ethereum passed an important milestone this morning, passing $100 a coin on some exchanges. Ethereum’s market cap now stands at a total of $9 Billion, doubling its value in the span of just two weeks.
The overall market cap of all digital coins that we spoke about in yesterday’s update has indeed accelerated growing approximately $5 Billion in the last 24 hours!!!!
Janet and the NFP
What’s an NFP? Is that some sort of new cryptocurrency?
For those of you who are new, the NFP is usually the biggest market moving announcement every month and gives us a good picture of the labor market in the USA.
Currently, analysts are expecting to see more than 180 Thousand jobs added in April. The announcement will come in at 1:30 PM UK time.
This month, the implications of the announcement could be bigger than usual. After the FOMC statement on Wednesday, the market took it as a sign that the Fed will hike rates in June. However, there was no speech at this meeting.
Tonight, about 5 hours after the NFP we’ll finally hear from Janet Yellen. So it seems, that Janet may just have been waiting to see these numbers before confirming the market’s current rate-hike theory.
It’s not just Janet either. Over the weekend we will hear from a total of seven Fed members!!!
So, if we see a half decent report today, all should be on track. However, if we see a flop and the NFP coming out significantly lower than expected it may cause the Fed to pause and wait for more data before running full steam ahead into June.
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Wishing you an amazing weekend!!
Best regards,
Mati Greenspan
Senior Market Analyst
