 Okay, very good morning to you. It is Friday the 22nd of January So if I'll come to the end of the week I'm gonna get you up to speed on what happened on the closing wall street obviously here we can see the heat map of the S&P 500 and We're gonna talk about one of the main things to look out for for the day ahead if you are watching here snapfire live Obviously, it's just gone 7 a.m. Now, so you're getting this early doors But if you're watching this on YouTube delayed don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel really appreciate it Leave a comment if you have any questions at all and also check out amplify live on the link below But look, let's look at the the close on Wall Street here. And there's a couple of Green hotspots and also red if you were looking at energy bit of a reflection of the latest policies the executive orders issued in the first day in office for Joe Biden, particularly more Negative in some respects for the energy sector, but on the flip side yesterday Again NASDAQ outperformer and the NASDAQ is outperform really for three consecutive sessions to see off the the second half of this week Closed up eight tenths of 1% in the NASDAQ 100 last night comparative to basically flat at the S&P and down Apple was up about three point seven percent came after a positive broker upgrade from Morgan Stanley Then you also had another standout here with some of the chip makers, which was Intel They had some strong numbers as well Which we'll talk about in a moment They actually pre-released their earnings just before the close on an apparent hacking of their corporate website But nonetheless, they had positive numbers They were up six point five percent and you can see that reverberate across the other chip making space NVIDIA AMD all moving considerably higher as well Both around three percent each respectively So continuation of the NASDAQ moves big tech as well Amazon Facebook obviously helping lift that index to to outperform the others Otherwise just looking at the broader context of the asset class mix this morning equity index futures if anything I would say This is a little bit of a period of consolidation in some respects or if anything profit-taking Just going over the news which I'll talk about in a moment. I think overall. I'm pretty neutral I would say in terms of directional biases I don't really have a definitive kind of positive or negative outlook as far as the intraday is concerned But just a quick cycle through some of these charts, and I think they'll explain them from a technical point of view When I'm looking at and here We've got a we got really this is the NASDAQ 100 future a kind of area of what I would say is consolidation now Perhaps it makes more It's more appropriate to put it on a 90 minute and this is reflected across the other US indices really and We've had such a such a good week for the equity market I mean if we go back to where we were right at the beginning of the week, you know trading down really From a percentage point of view if I go back to the beginning of the reopening of trade on the 18th 19th, and we were right back down there Here the low to the high we're looking at about a five plus percent gain So to see us just leveling off a little bit and just starting to consolidate on the upper bound of that move I think it's absolutely probably appropriate because there hasn't been really much in a way of singular catalyst it's been more of this kind of shared viewing markets about the The cohesion and collaboration that we'd like to see between the administration in the former Biden and the LMS Treasury Secretary with that of the Fed and that's what's really Cultivated this move throughout the entire week really irrespective of things like COVID still obviously Being a fairly precarious situation in terms of death counts and pressure on infrastructure in terms of hospitals and so on This is reflected across elsewhere and you know the NASDAQ has held up a little bit better I guess in the case of the S&P I don't think it would be surprising at all to see a little bit of profit-taking This is obviously the all-time highs seen here. This was touched Actually in the very early hours of yesterday's trade looking on the 90 minute candlestick here So we've kind of drifted south with down about 12 points this morning nothing dramatic Nothing really too much to mention the overnight Asia pack session if we drift back down Be looking for a key area of kind of support to come in Down at around that 38 kind of 17 18 level which would encapsulate the highs It was seen back on the 8th and again resistance on the 14 15th of this month. So Don't feel particularly apprehensive if we did have a negative day You know, we come down half percent percent. I think we'll find support lower down All things remaining equal for the time being Otherwise elsewhere gold has come down to a fairly interesting near-term technical level of support Which the market did respond to yesterday just marked it up here with a colored rectangle Which was going back to the end of last week It acted as resistance a few times before we broke through that middle of this week it acted as a nice Area of support alongside the pivot level yesterday took a decent bounce on the back of that We've just had a fail break again this morning So I do think that precious building on that level definitely worth keeping an eye on any breach of that then could open up Decent move to the downside probably looking to target the S2 on the day which would bring in some of these relative highs that was seen around 1850 type area Which would be right on that S2 level Oil markets they broke down a little bit in the overnight session Again, no real major news to to kind of trigger that move other than what I'd say is probably a technical breach This is where we had the API infantry data Early in the week. We haven't had the OEs is yet. We've had a kind of dual delay to that release given the Martin Luther King junior day holiday on Monday and then the inauguration we had midweek So we've broken down in the overnight session through what had been an area of support Which was around 52 86 in front-month futures and the markets just dropped in fairly Illiquid conditions in the overnight session and we're trading down around sixty seven cents at the moment. So I Wouldn't say it was any to do with so much covid developments people panicking on the demand side I'd say this is more just a technical based move than anything else does come at mid with gold trading a touch Heavier down four bucks a bit of resurgent Surgeons in the dollar this morning as Europe's coming to the market the Dixie's just picked up a touch Trading up now one tenth of one percent just reversing partially some of the losses that had been seen in the prior session How persistent do I think that that dollar strength will be? I don't think it will be that persistent I think we are going to resume this downward trend, but for now There is a bit of mild dollar strength and as such then it's putting a little bit of weight on some of these major currency pairs Cables just coming down to a relative area of interest in the near term. So just having a look here This is kind of 37 11 marker was really important You know, we were looking at the daily continuation this time yesterday about how important it was if cable were to see a Continuation and really a decent next push to the upside Ultimately tying in 140. It was really important that this week we managed to close ourself above what had been that key area of Resistance and support dating back to 2017 2018 and we're now turning away from there So it might be then that that area of resistance does hold If we remain as we are at the moment and then euro dollar as well just backing off a little bit just again Not so much sterling Euro-related a little bit more that rebound and a dollar but worth noting that cable is Underperforming that of Euro dollar and we're going to talk about cable a little bit more from a fundamental perspective Because there's been some updates on the UK lockdown strategy Which would have negative connotations for for sterling from a fundamental perspective. All right So look, let's get straight into some of the news flow then so we talked about this as the overall Kind of snapshot of how we finished. We did have some aftermarket earnings. So just very briefly IBM their shares did fall around six point five percent aftermarket. So fairly sizable decline Their sales have now declined or remain stagnant for ten quarters With no year over year increase in revenue their cloud and cognitive software IBM's biggest unit saw revenues decrease 4.5 percent from a year earlier the company hasn't given any specific financial guidance having stopped doing so back in April of 2020 so yeah, not good numbers at all for IBM and becoming a Familiar pattern there for that particular firm in turn on the other hand They were up over six percent and as I said, they needed to pre-release their earnings because of an apparent hacking of their corporate website The net result though was they had some pretty strong numbers Their revenues did slip one percent in the fourth quarter to twenty billion But that was in fact two and a half billion dollars above street expectations Just having a look then talking about COVID-19 and lockdowns firstly starting with New president Biden. He's unveiled his kind of COVID-19 response strategy Announcing a series of executive actions including stabilizing the supply chain for critical medical supplies and boosting the government's ability to rapid and equitable vaccine distribution, so Yeah, already feels like a very different approach to what we had under the Trump administration, which was kind of just almost ignoring the fact that this was going on and Biden's taken A little bit more of an assertive stance Well, it's too early really to say whether this will yield dividend It's one thing committing to a strategic plan. It's another thing executing it So I wouldn't say this is particularly anything that would move markets and also it's not really that out of line of Expectations of what people would expect Biden to do anyhow To give you a bit of context in terms of numbers, the US has administered at least 17.2 million doses of the vaccine so far. That's about five doses per 100 people according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker Where does that put the US generally in terms of its rollout? Well, it's behind the likes of Israel and the UK But it is outpacing people like Germany Italy and Canada at the moment So they're kind of mid-table if you if you like The main talking point though for a lot of the press has been the UK and as I said the pound is underperforming a little bit this morning and You know, this is the one thing I think that could kind of Just Take a little bit of a shine out of this whole positivity that's been emerging with this whole kind of view About this kind of goalie lock scenario under under the Fed and POW and Yellen and so on and that is the fact that you know The reality here is that lockdowns will be extended You know, I've talked about this a lot on the briefing as soon as the UK government came out and said We're gonna we're gonna review the current lockdown status With an aim then to have administered 14 million Vaccines by the middle of February allowing us to loosen the lockdown. I mean that Was never gonna be met in my opinion And you know the talk of the town now is that the the third UK lockdown could last until the summer So let me give you a bit of detail around the kind of reasoning for this And a lot of this is emanating from Reports from late yesterday evening where Boris Johnson does warned basically it's too early To save England's coronavirus lockdown will end in the spring now him saying that phrase is quite a big U-turn In government communication before they've been pretty adamant and sticking to that I think ever since Dominic Rabb spoke at last weekend and he was talking about September time, you know, I think the The narratives change a little bit and realization is is that they definitely need to Prolonged this particularly given the fact that there was that Imperial College study yesterday talking about the reproductive rate really has had zero Change Irrespective of this national lockdown and a lot of that reminded me of this chart that This table here. I know it's a lot of text, but I'll summarize it this came out from Bank of America I tweeted it maybe three or four months ago And I was talking about positive and negative kind of trends that were emerging as we go through the pandemic and you know One of the main things here. I think has been Kind of three-fold out of the four bullet points at the bottom and the main one being pandemic fatigue You know the adherence to the rules which is the main rhetoric the government had been trying to push and This increasing kind of penalty fines that people will be paid is because people have become tired of Social distancing they're taking more chances You know their willingness to accept worsening public health for the opening of the economy to try and get back to work and things like that They're definitely I'd say is the main culprit of this the situation at the moment Then you've had super spreader events. You've had Christmas You've had new years all of these undoubtedly are contributing factors to it and then cold weather and fading fiscal backdrop, but you know the last one I think Rishi's really gonna have a real pain Later on in a few months time when hopefully we come out of the other side of the COVID situation because you know tax increases And as he said to MPs yesterday, there is no such thing as a money tree Someone's got to pay for all this and that's going to be another tricky point in time to tackle But something which will be much further down the line that went in really impact the market from here and now But yeah at some point the fiscal Side cannot support markets forever and it's got to show itself to be sustainable on its own two feet So going back to here then and what what's happening is basically Johnson's change to kind of rhetoric a little bit on the timing of the loosening of the lockdown because of the fact that leading scientific Advisors part of the scientific pandemic influenza group on modeling. They're called the spy M So it would be unwise to consider reopening pubs and restaurants until May Now a lot of what they were talking about was the efficacy rates of these vaccines Even though they're particularly high at 90 percent, you know, ultimately then there's 10 percent of the Vaccinated group and these are obviously the most at risk generally older Demographic or those with underlying new medical conditions are still Not going to respond to the virus and therefore have an ability to spread and also are at more risk of eventual death And at that category puts more pressure on the infrastructure things like the NHS so Yeah, I mean It's always been the same the sensible thing is always being to act fast act hard But obviously that's the worst thing economically and politicians are caught in that catch 22 so It's interesting to see now where the government go with this UK government source reported in the telegraph has suggested a two phase unlocking plan is under consideration Now what this would constitute of is whereby the national lockdown will be stretched out for several months Before moving the entire country into tier two restrictions And obviously tier two in terms of what the actual virus is performing on a case basis Would be quite a considerable drop in cases at that point before then the loosening could take place Um ministers have gone so far as saying according to the telegraph and the guardian this morning of considering making a 500 pound payment To everyone who tests positive for covet in order to persuade people with symptoms to come forward for a test So that's how far it's got now. I think the the maths Back of a napkin would work out about two billion pounds That would cost the government going on the current rates at the moment That you can anticipate the people coming forward then for tests um, so Yeah, the main bottom line here is that um Again, I I saw easter as more of a timing for the lockdown. This is going even beyond that at the moment Even it could be a strategy the government uses where they have some degree of loosening over easter again because it's cultural relevance And then we return back to the the status play of what we're in at the moment And then it rolls on for another few months so Yeah, that of course has implications in terms of the the economic kind of narrative at the moment in the uk and the speed of the The recovery going forward. So, yeah, sterling's had a really good run. Um, a lot of it Supported by some double weakness recently So that in combination with that long-term key technical level resistance Just backing off a little bit this morning and and if we um, I do think that we will hold potentially that resistance and we won't End up above that long-term level, which will be technically significant then for the time being I quick look at the calendar. Um, there are some interesting data points coming out this morning Just quickly the uk retail sales number came in at 0.3 percent. That was weaker than expected 1.2 So just further fuels the flame obviously of the already downward trend and under performance that sterling was seeing But I think it's a much lesser contributing factor in that respect. The main thing is really is the data coming out this morning You've got the flash. It is the jam flash pmi day And that means you need to have your wits about you these are market moving data points We saw some surprisingly strong numbers actually last time out however Since then we've had further restrictions coming in in the likes of Germany, Netherlands Restrictions so much so in the lockdown that they're even more stringent than what they were in the spring so particularly interested to see the german figure And I guess the anticipation here is that perhaps on the bias to a more weaker downside surprise And this definitely has the potential to be market moving for the euro european based assets as well across the board Otherwise for the u.s. We get the same So 245 you've got existing home sales. And as I said, you've got the delayed release of the department energy Oil numbers as well coming out later That is it though. I'm going to leave it there Let you guys get on with the day. I'm going to wish you a lovely weekend. Take care And I will see you on monday. Thanks