Morning wrap (30.04.2021)

• US indices finished yesterday's trading mostly higher. Dow Jones gained 0.71%, S&P 500 added 0.68% and Nasdaq moved 0.22% higher. Russell 2000 dropped 0.38%

• Downbeat moods could be spotted on the stock exchanges in Asia. Nikkei and S&P/ASX 200 moved 0.9% lower while Kospi dropped 0.8%.

• DAX futures point to a flat opening of the European session

• China said that activity of US military ship and spy planes targeted at China has increased since Biden took over as US President

• France has found the first case of Indian coronavirus mutation. Virus variant has also been detected in China

• Chinese manufacturing PMI for April dropped from 51.9 to 51.1 (exp. 51.7). Services PMI dropped from 56.3 to 54.9 (exp. 56.1)

• Japanese industrial production for March increased 2.2% MoM (exp. -2% MoM)

• According to the World Gold Council, gold ETFs saw the largest outflows in Q1 2021 in more than 4 years

• Twitter (TWTR.US) dropped in after-hours trading. Company reported Q1 revenue at $1.04 billion, up 28% YoY and in-line with estimates. EPS reached $0.16 (exp. $0.14). Number of monetizable daily users increased to 199 million (exp 200 million).

• Amazon (AMZN.US) reported a 44% YoY jump in Q1 revenue to $108.52 billion (exp. $104.47 billion). Earnings per share reached $15.69 (exp. $9.54). Company expects solid momentum to continue into Q2 with a sales forecast of $110-116 billion for the quarter

• Precious metals and oil trade lower. Industrial metals trade mixed

• AUD and JPY are the best performing major currencies while EUR and CHF lag the most

US100 made another attempt of breaking to a fresh all-time high yesterday. However, this attempt failed like the previous ones. Index started to pull back and is now trying to break below the short-term support at 13,880 pts, marked with recent local lows. Source: xStation5