WEEKLY BUSINESS ROUNDUP

Stocks fell for a fourth straight day in the U.S markets, with the benchmark S&P 500 index finishing its worst week since February. Similarly, Dow had its worst weekly decline since October, down 3.5% following Friday’s more than 500 point loss. Selling pressure in the Equities got magnified by investors worried over more signs that borrowing costs could be going up sooner than expected. This could eventually lead to the stifling of economic growth as the central bank tries to fend off higher inflation by raising interest rates.

The drop in equities was broad-based, with shares of industrial, energy, consumer, and financial companies falling. Chevron and Goldman Sachs lost more than 3%. All the stocks in the DJIA declined. Even tech stocks, which have been back in favor recently, were down. Sectors that had led the market higher all year were the week’s worst performers, with the financials and materials groups each losing more than 6% and energy losing more than 5%. Commodity prices also plunged, including a 9% drop in copper.

Greenback was the big gainer this week with a hawkish Federal Reserve lifting the benchmark Dollar Index (DXY) to new highs over 92.30. With the Feds dot plots much more hawkish relative to expectations, USD bears have been squeezed as dollar-funded carry trades unwind. However, given the size of the move in short order, the greenback is starting to look overextended. Looking ahead, upside risks likely to persist for the greenback vs low-yielding currencies as markets digest the Feds’ hawkish surprise. If the equities extend losses in what is typically a seasonally weak time for risk assets — this could give further impetus to DXY.

Although crypto market action was mostly a miss this week as Bitcoin & other cryptos lost ground, increasing indications are that Cryptocurrencies are more and more becoming a mainstream investment option. A new study by the U.K.’s financial services industry regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that about 2.3 million adults in Britain owned cryptocurrency, a 21% increase from last year. The study reported that, on average, crypto owners were male, over 35 years old, with an occupation that put them in the upper or middle class, Similarly, Gemini also discovered average U.S. crypto investors were quite similar to their British counterparts: male, 38 years old, with an income of $111,000 a year.

Today’s featured infographic looks at a new trade alliance taking shape in Asia & Oceania. USMCA & EU are two of the biggest trading regions in the world, but a novel trading partnership is all set to become the biggest trading block in the world. In late 2020, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was signed, officially creating the biggest trade bloc in history. The infographic above by Visual Capitalist breaks down everything you need to know about it, from who’s involved to its implications. The RCEP is a free trade agreement between 15 nations in the Asia-Pacific region and has been formalized after 28 rounds of discussion over eight years.

And finally, before moving on to some other statistics, here are the weekly & YTD numbers from various markets and different assets (Figure 1).

Coinsmart. Beste Bitcoin-Börse in Europa
Source: https://medium.com/technicity/global-business-week-rcep-is-all-set-to-become-the-worlds-biggest-trading-block-41b26479d7cc?source=rss——-8—————–cryptocurrency