Growth resumed on US stocks last Friday. Dow Jones rose by roughly 1%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained 1.5% and 2.3%, respectively.
This should be good news, however, the war in Israel continues to escalate. In fact, even though the UN has already called for an end to the violence, shelling from the Gaza side continued all throughout the weekend, several times with high intensity. Israel has not deployed troops to Gaza yet, but responded with targeted strikes against those associated with the terrorists.
On the bright side, a significant decrease in daily COVID-19 cases was recorded on Sunday. A total of only 538,000 was listed, which is 20% lower than last week's rate. Apparently, India's incidents dipped to 280,000, while Germany's slipped to 7,000. As for France, cases rose a bit to 17,000.
Going back to the markets, Japan indices dipped by 0.9%, while China indices grew by 1.4%, thanks to a rather strong economic recovery. The main cause was the sharp jump in industrial production - 9.8% in April.
As for the oil market, Brent slipped by 0.1%, thereby hitting a price of $ 68.60. It is expected to range from $ 69.60 to $ 67.50 today.
WTI also fell by 0.1% and is trading at $ 65.30. It is projected to range from $ 66.30 to $ 64.50 today.
Conclusion: Although there are no big news expected, investors are closely monitoring the situation. More specifically, they are scrutinizing if there will be new gains, or if there will be a market correction.
