Trade review: current reports, trends, indices, stock prices, bonds, foreign exchange and commodities and analyst recommendations
08:38
In Asia, with the exception of the Nikkei which rose by about 1% this morning, the other major indices are trading down, in China the Shanghai Index is down 0.5%, the Hang Seng Index is down 0.7% and the South Korean Kospi Index is trading down a slight 0.1%.
On Wall Street, futures are trading higher this morning, the main indexes, Nasdaq, Dow Jones and S&P 500 are up 0.3%.
Yesterday, after most of the trading day saw price increases, Wall Street closed lower. The Nasdaq index fell by 0.4%, the Dow Jones by 0.1% and the S&P 500 by 0.3%.
On its first day of trading, Donald Trump’s social network, Truth Social, soared by 50% but closed with a gain of about 16%. The company trades under the symbol DJT after it was merged into the Supec Digital World Acquisition, the market value of DWAC and now DJT is almost triple this year. Trump owns about 60% of the company’s shares, which are now worth about $5 billion. Trump will only be able to realize this investment in about six months, in order to sell some of the shares or to take a loan against it, he will need the board of directors, which will partly be staffed by his son and some of the government officials who worked with him in the past.
Krispy Kreme’s stock jumped about 40% after the company reached an agreement with McDonald’s According to the latter, it will sell Krispy’s donuts in all its stores across the US within a year and a half. McDonald’s has about 13,000 branches in the US.
stock UPS It fell by about 8%, after having jumped at the beginning of trading. The company held its annual “Investors’ Day” yesterday and announced a new strategy and a forecast for 2026 – the company’s steps will improve the automation processes and reduce expenses, the company hopes.
The company also added and announced a series of steps that will lead to an increase in market share and even add new markets to the company. The company expects revenues of 110-114 billion dollars by 2026. In 2023, the company’s revenues will drop to 91 billion dollars.
The Japanese yen fell this morning to its lowest level in 34 years against the dollar, 151.99 yen to the dollar. Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki reportedly said he would not hesitate to intervene in the exchange rate.
Oil prices have risen slightly and Bank Leumi’s chief economist, Dr. Gil Michael Bafman, notes that “the outlook for oil prices in the short term is influenced by the policy of the OPEC Plus group which extended the cuts in oil exports, and may even deepen them. These, in combination with maintaining A high level of global demand may lead to the maintenance of a relatively high level of oil prices in the short term. On the other hand, it appears that the continued acceleration of oil production in the United States, combined with the promotion of additional projects in the energy sector, may offset the pressure to increase prices.”
Cocoa prices soared to an all-time high yesterday when futures for May reached $10,080 per ton during the day. The price has more than tripled in the last 12 months and is up 129% since the beginning of the year.
This is bad news for the chocolate and candy manufacturers and in particular companies like Hershey and Mondelez International Counting on events like Easter and Halloween to push sales.
This is bad news for consumers as well, if the chocolate manufacturers will pass on the costs to them, the main impact on the buyers is yet to come. Hershey’s CEO, Michel Buck said in a conversation with CNBC that the company has a hedging strategy against the price increase, the same is true for other candy manufacturers and they have not yet passed on the price to the customers, but “there is a limit to this as well”, said Paul Jules, Commodity analyst at Bravobank.
The world is now experiencing the biggest crisis in cocoa production in 60 years, the main problem is in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, where stormy weather and diseases of the crop have left the industry in a problematic situation, the two countries produce about 60% of the amount of cocoa. The World Cocoa Organization expects a shortage of up to 375 thousand tons, a 405% increase compared to last year. “The worst is yet to come,” Jules said. “Cocoa prices will be high for a while because there are no easy solutions to these problems.”
Ofer Klein, Harel’s chief economist, refers to the global interest rate outline: “In the last two weeks, most of the major central banks in the West have stated that if the decline in inflation continues as predicted, the interest rate will fall again this year.”
He adds that, “Last week’s surprising interest rate cut in Switzerland, as well as the Fed’s ionic forecast regarding the rate of interest rate cuts later this year, support the Bank of Israel lowering the interest rate once again in the upcoming announcement on April 8. On the other hand, factors such as the expansionary fiscal policy and the changes The sharps in the exchange rate, which will allow the Bank of Israel to wait if it so chooses.”
On Friday at noon, the private expenditure price index, the PCE index, which is the inflation index preferred by the Federal Reserve, will be published.
Cesar Ruiz-Perez, Chief Investment Officer at the Swiss Piquet Bank, claims that “central banks are expected to start cutting interest rates in June, although the risks are that the Fed will cut interest rates less than expected this year. The focus this week is on the core measure of personal consumption expenditures in the US ( on Friday) and consumer sentiment (on Thursday)”.
Matthew Rechter, Head of Strategy Research at the Julius Baer Wealth Management Bank predicts that interest rate reductions in the US are an opportunity for increases in the stock markets – “Looking at similar cases since the 1980s, we see high performance in the market after interest rate cuts that were not caused by a recession” .
“Last week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting further fueled the rise in global stock markets. Despite higher-than-expected inflation figures, the Fed announced three interest rate cuts of 25 basis points by the end of the year.”
“The stock markets reacted as expected, with long-term stocks (that is, those more exposed to the higher interest rate environment for a longer time) reacting particularly positively. Our economists predict that the first interest rate cut will happen as early as June, followed by further cuts in July and September, which will lower the interest rate to -4.75% until the end of 2024”.
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