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After an Inauguration Day rally for the record books, what’s next for stocks?

Published

1 month ago

January 21, 2021

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Good morning. It may have been a somewhat subdued, socially-distanced affair in Washington yesterday—LOWEST. INAUGURATION.TURNOUT. IN. MEMORY!, someone somewhere no doubt tweeted—but investors were out there, popping champagne corks.

U.S. equities hit record highs on Wednesday, and global stocks continue to rally today. Alas, Bitcoin continues to slump.

Let’s see where investors are putting their money.

Markets update

Asia

The major Asia indexes are mostly higher in afternoon trading with the Shanghai Composite up 1.1%.
Alibaba investors are doing a bit of profit-taking today, sending shares in the e-commerce giant 2.7% lower. That’s after the company’s $58.2 billion surge on Wednesday.
Chinese tech stocks have been on a one-month tear. The Market Ear blog notes, the closely watched KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB) is up nearly 25% since Christmas as we see the global tech trade reflate.

Europe

The European bourses were higher out of the gates with the Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.75%. with auto and bank stocks leading the way.
The real estate market for London‘s swankiest neighbo(u)rhoods, Mayfair and Knightsbridge, is hitting all kinds of COVID turbulence, forcing landlords and property owners to slash rents and offer-prices.
The Bitcoin market may be stalling out at the moment, but that’s not stopping BlackRock. The world’s biggest asset manager will for the first time offer futures in the digital currency to clients.

U.S.

U.S. futures are gaining again this morning. That’s after all three exchanges, plus the Russell 2000, closed Wednesday in the green, with a string of fresh all-time highs.
The big winner was Netflix, which jumped 16%. (It’s flat this morning). As Fortune‘s Aaron Pressman explains, perhaps overlooked in all the glee over new subscriber sign-ups is even bigger news— that “the company would be cash flow positive this year despite spending close to $20 billion on new programming.”
Upbeat corporate earnings has proven to be a huge tailwind to stocks this week. Here’s who’s on deck today: CostCo, Intel, IBM and Kimberly-Clark, to name a few.

Elsewhere

Gold is up a tick, trading above $1,860/ounce.
The dollar is down a whisker.
Crude is off a sliver [help, I’m running out of tiny metaphors], with Brent trading below $56/barrel.
Bitcoin is down 5.3%. A cool three grand has been shaved off its value in the past 24 hours, to $32,700. [No metaphor problem here.]