The Christmas rally in the stock market went the wrong way
The Christmas week in the West started with sales. It's worth noting that since Monday morning nothing foretold a panic: Asian trading floors were doing relatively well and there was no large-scale desire to sell. But with the opening of the European exchanges the markets started to fall.
The main reason for the negative dynamics of stock indices was the continuation of the victorious march of the coronavirus across the planet, and in particular its actual victory in Europe, as well as the information that the virus is mutating. But those factors were present last week as well. So it's not about the virus, but the desire of investors to lock in their profits by the end of the year in the absence of growth drivers for the markets.
Remarkably, but the American market managed to buy back a considerable part of the drawdown by the end of the day: the S&P index closed with a loss of only 0.4% and the Dow Jones came out in the light plus, although futures on them fell by about 2% in the afternoon. This suggests that America is not yet ready to go into a deep correction, simply because there is nowhere to put the money but to invest it.
What's in store for us today? It's going to be a red morning again. American futures are down half a percent, 1.6% is losing oil, which yesterday still managed to hold above $50 per barrel and now is struggling for that level. The euro-dollar pair came close to 1.22, dragging down the prices of commodity assets.
The most promising stocks for a bounce look like SberbankGazprom, "Nornickel and the Moscow Exchange. And it is possible that the Moscow Exchange will trade better than the market due to the fact that investors as a reason to buy them will call the growth of trading turnover of the exchange.
But the oil industry is worth a wait and see. The risk of oil under $50 is high, including the fact that large producers of hydrocarbons may begin to hedge the price of future deliveries through the sale of oil futures.
The general sell-off has barely touched gold, which once again emphasizes that the current decline has no such fundamental basis as a liquidity crisis. It is not excluded that the big capital will again start to pay attention to precious metals as the best protection against dollar devaluation and inflation. Therefore, it makes sense to take a closer look at the shares of gold mining companies, first of all "To Pole." and Polymetal. It is only a matter of time before the gold price goes above $2,000 an ounce.
The ruble exchange rate went above 75 rubles per dollar at lunch, but by the end of global trading it managed to compensate for some of the losses. However, we are pessimistic about the Russian currency, as there is no reason for its growth. By the end of the year the dollar-ruble pair may well go closer to 78.
- More forecasts and news on the Fortrader channel at Telegram