The US stock markets jumped last week with Dow Jones records of 12.67 percent on hopeful signs that the coronavirus outbreak in the US will be shortly dimmed. In addition, the Trump efforts to incite Saudi and Russia for a crude oil cut to stabilize the market lead to the consolidation of crude oil prices even the Assembly of the OPEP hasn’t succeed to reaches the whished decision by the market. While the Federal Reserve on Wednesday released the minutes from last month’s two emergency meetings. These showed officials grew increasingly concerned by the swiftness with which the pandemic was harming the US economy and disrupting financial markets, prompting them to take ‘forceful action.

European stock markets record a good performance last week, ended the week with 12.09 percent higher, tracking a rally on Wall Street, but sentiment remained fragile with all eyes on whether Eurozone finance ministers will agree on an economic rescue package. While the daily death toll rose again in Spain, and France became the fourth country to register more than 10,000 deaths from the virus. Eurozone finance ministers have struggled to agree on a coordinated economic support package despite
several calls for common debt issuance to back businesses impacted by the outbreak.

In the other side, Chinese shares pulled back on Wednesday after a doubling of new coronavirus infections in mainland China highlighted continued risks posed by the pandemic.

The Bitcoin (BTC/USD) price appreciate last week by 1.93 percent and fluctuating around $6906.09 showing more confidence by the investors and traders face to the Bitcoin money.

In African currency markets, The Nigerian NAIRA was exchanged at 365.00 US dollars. The South Africa ZAR appreciated faces to the US dollar by -5.54 percent and ending last week at 17.95330 for 1 US dollars.

The last week main markets prices and variations

Market in Focus: 13 April – 17 April 2020
We have a list of high impact events this week. The publication of the events can leads to a strong movement or a trend for the related currencies. The discussion of the events impacts will be done within the daily FOREX report.

The publications that have a very significant theoretic impact are:

• USD: The retail Sales released by the US Census Bureau measures the total receipts of retail stores. Monthly percent changes reflect the rate of changes of such sales. “Wednesday”.
• CAD: BOC Governor and Senior Deputy Governor hold a press conference after the release of BOC Monetary Policy Report. The press conference has 2 parts – first a prepared statement is read, then the conference is open to press questions. ” Wednesday”.
• EUR: HICP is an index of consumer prices calculated and published by Destatis, the Statistical Office of the European Union, on the basis of a statistical methodology that has been harmonized across all EU member states. ” Thursday”.
• USD: The Building Permits released by the US Census Bureau, at the Department of Commerce shows the number of permits for new construction projects. ” Thursday”.
• USD: The Initial Jobless Claims released by the US Department of Labor is a measure of the number of people filing first-time claims for state unemployment insurance. ” Thursday”.
• CNY: The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China studies the gross value of all goods and services produced by China. The indicator presents the pace at which the Chinese economy is growing or decreasing. ” Friday”.