Market Updates: 5 January

3 min read | January 05, 2021 08:23 PM AEDT | By Hina Chowdhary

FTSE 100 likely to open in red as England enters another national lockdown

UK stock markets are set to open in red on Tuesday, 5 January, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has once again announced a national lockdown in order to arrest the recent spike in coronavirus cases and people seeking hospital care. The negative global cues coupled with the lower closing on Wall Street has furthered the jittery among the market participants.

Lockdown shatters rising equities

London equities have started the new year 2021 on a positive note with the headline index FTSE 100 soaring nearly 2 per cent. But the Covid-19-led uncertainty has seemed to have renewed with the Downing Street administration declaring another nation-wide lockdown. Notably, the case rate in England has moved up more than three times in the span of last one month as there were 478.5 infectious cases per 100k up to 29 December as compared to 151.3 cases as on 1 December.

A lockdown at the beginning of the year is particularly going to affect the slowly-recovering businesses that were expecting to witness a meaningful silver lining in hopes of a mass-scale vaccination programme. Earlier yesterday itself, the FTSE 100 index closed at 6,571.88, up 111.36 points, or 1.72 per cent after hitting an intraday peak of 6,662.66. FTSE 100 slipped marginally from the day’s high on the announcement of national lockdown after oscillating comfortably above 6,600 level during most of the time.

(Source: EODHD/Others, Thomson Reuters)

GBP regains partially

On the contrary, the GBP vs USD pair traded slightly higher in green following the extended weakness of greenback. As per the latest data available, GBP to USD pair was trading at 1.3594, up 0.19 per cent at around 0636 GMT from the previous close of 1.3569. The Bank of England had fixed a currency conversion rate of 1.3649 USD and 1.1118 EUR against a unit of Great Britain pound on 31 December 2020.

NYSE reverse order to delist Chinese telcos

Meanwhile, the New York Stock Exchange has reversed its order of delisting three Chinese telecommunication companies from its platform. NYSE Regulation “no longer intends” to proceed ahead with the erstwhile order of delisting NYSE said in a statement. Following the development, the three Hong Kong Stock Exchange-floated Chinese telecom entities namely China Telecom Corporation Ltd, China Mobile Ltd, and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd jumped immediately up to 11 per cent in the opening deals on 5 January.

The stock of China Unicom (Hong Kong) surged as much as 10.96 per cent to an intraday peak of HKD 4.96 from the previous close of HKD 4.47, while the shares of China Telecom and China Mobile rose 8-8.5 per cent, respectively.

Commodity check

The safe-haven assets retreated minimally on Tuesday with an ounce of gold trading 0.10 per cent lower at $1,941.08 from the previous closing of $1,943.01. Energy market also tripped into the red with a barrel of Brent crude oil trading 0.25 per cent lower at $50.96 and WTI crude oil trading 0.17 per cent lower at $47.54 per barrel. Cryptocurrency market extended the losses with bitcoin trading 5.73 per cent lower at $31,175.29, Binance data showed.

Disclaimer

The content, including but not limited to any articles, news, quotes, information, data, text, reports, ratings, opinions, images, photos, graphics, graphs, charts, animations and video (Content) is a service of Kalkine Media Pty Ltd (Kalkine Media, we or us), ACN 629 651 672 and is available for personal and non-commercial use only. The principal purpose of the Content is to educate and inform. The Content does not contain or imply any recommendation or opinion intended to influence your financial decisions and must not be relied upon by you as such. Some of the Content on this website may be sponsored/non-sponsored, as applicable, but is NOT a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold the stocks of the company(s) or engage in any investment activity under discussion. Kalkine Media is neither licensed nor qualified to provide investment advice through this platform. Users should make their own enquiries about any investments and Kalkine Media strongly suggests the users to seek advice from a financial adviser, stockbroker or other professional (including taxation and legal advice), as necessary. Kalkine Media hereby disclaims any and all the liabilities to any user for any direct, indirect, implied, punitive, special, incidental or other consequential damages arising from any use of the Content on this website, which is provided without warranties. The views expressed in the Content by the guests, if any, are their own and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Kalkine Media. Some of the images/music that may be used on this website are copyright to their respective owner(s). Kalkine Media does not claim ownership of any of the pictures displayed/music used on this website unless stated otherwise. The images/music that may be used on this website are taken from various sources on the internet, including paid subscriptions or are believed to be in public domain. We have used reasonable efforts to accredit the source wherever it was indicated as or found to be necessary.