【TOP1 Morning】Ethereum surpasses Bitcoin, Palladium surges to US$3,000

Forex: USD rebounded by 0.1%

Strong economic growth usually boosts the dollar: higher growth drives more spending, which in turn pushes up prices. When prices rise, the Federal Reserve has historically intervened by raising interest rates to prevent inflation.

The US dollar index rose 0.1% to 90.596. Earlier, the index fell to its lowest level since February 26.

The dollar’s early decline also pushed the euro to a nine-week high against the dollar, but the euro later stabilized, falling 0.1% to around $1.2116.

The U.S. dollar fell to a three-year low against the Canadian dollar in intraday trading, and fell 0.2% late at 1.2281 Canadian dollars.

However, the yen’s difficult trend against the US dollar was still affected by the key target of the Bank of Japan’s statement earlier this week that Japan’s inflation rate would not reach 2% by the beginning of 2023.

USD rose 0.3% against the yen in late trading to 108.88 yen.

Cryptocurrency: Ethereum hits a new high

The price of Bitcoin fell to around US$52,000, but Ethereum broke through its historical high to close to US$2,800, and then fell back.

In the cryptocurrency market, Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, reached a new high on Thursday, reaching US$2,800.89, down 0.7% in late trading to US$2,732.09.

Ether continues to gain institutional interest, especially with the explosive growth of decentralized finance (DeFi), an encrypted platform that facilitates lending by non-traditional banking institutions. These platforms are built on the Ethereum blockchain.

Stock market: U.S. stocks rise

The technology giants Facebook and Apple released outstanding performance, coupled with a series of excellent economic data, so that the benchmark Nasdaq reached a new high in the early stage, and then it performed repeatedly. As of the close, the Dow closed up 241.10 points, or 0.71%, to 34061.48 points; the S&P 500 closed up 28.40 points, or 0.68%, to 4,21.69 points; the Nasdaq closed up 31.52 points, or 0.22%, to 1,4082.55 points.

In terms of individual stocks, Nokia (NOK.N) closed up 11.19%, Facebook (FB.O) closed up 7.3%, Qualcomm (QCOM.O) closed up 4.47%, Lyft (LYFT.O) closed down 9.94%, eBay (EBAY) .O) closed down 10.03% and Ford Motor (FN) closed down 9.41%.

According to a report released by the US Department of Commerce (Bureau of Economic Analysis), the real GDP (annualized quarterly rate) of the United States in the first quarter was 6.4% from the previous month (expected to be 6.7%), the highest level since the third quarter of 2003 ; Personal consumption expenditure (PCE) in the first quarter was 10.7% (expected to be 10.5%), the second highest since the 1960s. This shows that the US economy has accelerated in the first quarter, and the surge in consumer spending has helped the overall economy. The output has reached a level close to the pre-epidemic level.

Gold: Gold price fell by more than 1%

Driven by the positive economic data in the United States, the yield of US Treasury bonds rose sharply, and the price of gold fell by more than 1%. The shortage of supply pushed the price of palladium to a record high, making it expected to break through the $3,000 mark.

Spot gold closed at 1,772.18 US dollars / ounce, down 9.50 US dollars or 0.53%, the highest intraday hit 1790.02 US dollars / ounce, the lowest hit since April 15 low point of 1,756.04 US dollars / ounce.

COMEX June gold futures closed down 0.3%, at 1,768.30 US dollars per ounce.

"Rising U.S. Treasury yields and optimistic risk appetite are weighing on safe-haven metals," said Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco Metals.

Crude oil: oil prices continue to rise

The two major crude oil futures continued their gains. US WTI crude oil futures for June closed up 1.15 US dollars, or 1.80%, to a new high of 65.01 US dollars per barrel in one and a half months; Brent July crude oil futures closed up 1.29 US dollars, or 1.92%, to 68.56 US dollars per barrel.

Citi expects that vaccinations in North America and Europe will push oil demand to a record high of 101.5 million barrels per day this summer, but if the surge in cases in India and Brazil leads to the re-implementation of restrictions, local demand may be hit.

Today’s focus is on:

16:00 Initial value of German GDP annual rate (Q1)

17:00 Eurozone GDP quarterly rate initial value

20:30 U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index Annual Rate

20:30 U.S. core PCE price index annual rate