Apple’s panic, German disappoint, inflation data

The main event of yesterday, which set the pace for the dynamics of the main financial markets, was Apple's announcement that the company was unlikely to be able to achieve its sales forecasts. The reason is, of course, the coronavirus epidemic in China. The news, in general, is obvious, but since the madness of total optimism has long owned the markets for a long time, investors did not want to face facts to the last - China's problems are problems of the whole world. And Apple essentially stated this.

Against this background, gold rose above 1600. However, we recommend buying gold for a long time and persistently and so far do not see any reason to change the vector. We note that the yen continues to remain in place. Although given the disastrous GDP data that we talked about yesterday, this is not strange. Nevertheless, sales of the USDJPY pair continue to be a promising deal, at least until it is below 110.20.

The epidemic, meanwhile, continues. According to the results of yesterday, +1900 newly diagnosed and about 100 deaths. So, although the growth rate of sick and dead is decreasing, it is still high enough to restrain China in its attempts to return to a full recovery in economic activity.

Another unpleasant news yesterday was the publication of the ZEW expectations index for Germany. The data came out extremely depressing: +8.7 points with a forecast of +21.5 points and a January value of +26.7 points. The largest economy in the Eurozone is rapidly following Japan towards a recession. For the euro, this was another blow that sent the single European currency to the lowest mark since 2017. In general, the euro situation looks worse than ever, so we continue to sell EURUSD, EURGBP and EURJPY pairs. There is still much to fall.

Data on the labor market in the UK came out pretty good yesterday: employment was higher than expected (+180,000 with a forecast of +148,000). In addition, the pound was supported by the new Minister of Finance of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, who announced that he would submit the budget, as planned on March 11. Recall that the markets expect him to expand government spending and investment. Overall, pound purchases remain one of our favorite trading ideas. But when buying a pound, do not forget about the key risk for it - news from the fronts of trade negotiations between the EU and the UK.

Today, in terms of macroeconomic statistics, it will be interesting for inflation data for a number of countries, including the UK, the USA and Canada. Markets are now extremely vulnerable to inflation statistics, as rising inflation will be a signal for central banks to curtail ultra-soft policies.