Daily Headline News

The global stock index is currently mostly higher, and the Chinese stock market is leading the way up on hopes of recovery. Wall Street fell on Friday. JPMorgan Chase surged 7.55% after the financial report blowout, while Microsoft's stock price fell 1.28% on Friday, underperforming the market despite news that BAE Systems and Microsoft have teamed up to equip innovative cloud technology for defense plans.

The strengthening of the US dollar is intact now. This real-time US dollar index data shows that the ICE US dollar index, which measures the strength of the US dollar against a basket of six competing currencies, rose 0.9% on Friday.

The dual euro/dollar and pound/dollar reversed the upward trend on Friday, while the Federal Bureau of Statistics Destatis reported that the year-on-year increase in Germany's wholesale price index slowed from 8.9% in February to 2% in March. The euro and pound are currently declining against the US dollar. The USD/JPY reversed its retreat, while the AUD/USD reversed its upward trend on Friday. Currently, the JPY has fallen against the USD and the AUD has risen.

US stock index futures are currently rising and closing lower on Friday, after data from the Census Bureau showed a staggering 1% drop in retail sales in the United States in March. On Thursday, the benchmark indices of the three major US stocks recorded daily declines of between 0.2% and 0.4%.

European stock index futures rose today, led by bank stocks after closing higher on Friday. Asian stock index futures mostly rose today, led by the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index. The People's Bank of China continued to provide more liquidity and maintained the medium-term loan rate at 2.75%, leading the gains.

Brent is currently slightly declining. Oil prices closed higher last Friday as the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that significant production cuts announced by the Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries and other major oil producing countries led by Russia (an organization known as OPEC+) could exacerbate the global oil supply deficit. The US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has increased by 0.4%, but it is currently relatively low. Brent crude oil rose slightly by 0.3% on Friday to $86.31 per barrel. Last week, both benchmark indices rose by over 1%, marking the fourth consecutive week of gains.

Gold prices are currently rebounding. Hardware prices have fallen this week: spot gold has fallen 1.8% to $2003.43 per ounce.