Daily Wrap Up 8 November 2021

8 Nov 2021 04:45 PM

Wall Street lifted by infrastructure bill

It has been a quiet start to the week following the exciting moves seen in the markets last week. The actions of the Federal Reserve and Bank of England pushed up stocks, and Friday’s US non-farm payrolls report was the icing on the cake. Today, the European session is lacklustre, which is why the DAX, and the FTSE are showing modest gains. BP and Royal Dutch Shell are higher on account of the rally in oil, and that is helping the British market. The Dow Jones has posted a new record high as the House of Representatives passed a $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill, the S&P 500 is up on the session but the sell off in Tesla shares is holding back the index slightly.

Elon Musk, the colourful founder, and CEO of Tesla, posted an opinion poll on Twitter over the weekend, and he asked the question, should he sell 10% of his stock in the company to pay tax. 58% of respondents backed the proposal, so there is speculation he might trim his holding. Musk has generated a huge amount of publicity from the poll but there is no guarantee that anything will come of the survey. The US listed shares are down nearly 3% on the day, and that is relatively small for the stock.

WTI and Brent crude are up on the news that Saudi Arabia increased its selling price of oil for countries in Asia. The move by the major oil producer suggests that demand is robust. It comes a few days after oil fell to a one month low as US oil stockpiles continued to rise. Last month, natural gas, hit its highest mark in over a decade but since then it has cooled, and in turn we have seen oil pull back from its recent multi year high.

Gold has jumped to a two month high as the US dollar has retreated from the 13 month peak it posted in the wake of last Friday’s jobs data. At the end of last week, we saw the US dollar and gold move higher in tandem, but towards the end of the session on Friday, the greenback turned lower, and the metal continued to gain ground. The multi-month high in the gold could be an indication the wider bearish trend is coming to an end.

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