Lira slumps after CBRT; US stocks recover after early dip

Summary:

• Lira drops as CBRT removes hiking bias

• US stocks recover from early weakness

• Facebook and Microsoft jump

• Stock of the week: Uber Technologies

• Can the Bitcoin rally be sustained?

The Turkish central bank has followed the lead set be its more well established peers in abandoning a hiking bias in a move that has sent the Lira tumbling lower. This week there’s been similar messages from the BOC and RBA after the FED and ECB have already made marked large shifts to the dovish side. However, the comparisons with more developed central banks fail to take into account the economic situation in Turkey and with inflation still rampant in the emerging economy the move to a less hawkish stance could spell bad news for the Lira.  The main market moving news came from the accompanying statement as the CBRT removed a key line that pledged further tightening to be delivered going forward. USDTRY is now attempting to break above the 38.2-41.4% fib retracement at 5.8940-5.9572 from the highs of 7.1125 seen last August.

There was a bit of weakness seen in stocks at the start of the US session with the markets pulling back after a strong run higher of late. The DJIA was the worst performer of the large-cap US indices with the market pulling back to retest prior support from last week’s low. The region around 26310 has attracted buyers on the past couple of occasions it’s been tested and once more we’ve seen a bounce from this level with price back to pretty much flat on the day and above 26400 on the European close.

Both Facebook and Microsoft surged after their latest trading update. Facebook announced a solid set of results after last night’s closing bell with earnings per share of $1.89 vs $1.62 expected - if the one-time legal expense for the fine in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data mining scandal is ignored. First quarter revenue was $15.08B, more than the $14.98B expected while monthly active users for the app came in at 2.38 billion.

Meanwhile Microsoft has also gained after it’s latest release with the market cap for the stock briefly topping the $1T mark earlier this afternoon.  Microsoft’s gains followed a fiscal third-quarter earnings report that included an outlook range that bookended Wall Street estimates while topping the analyst consensus for the quarter, led by strong gains in its cloud services. The company reported fiscal third-quarter net income of $8.81 billion, or $1.14 a share, compared with $7.42 billion, or 95 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose to $30.57 billion from $26.82 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of $1 a share on revenue of $29.88 billion.

Uber Technologies, the biggest ride-sharing company in the world, is set to go live in early May. It will be the second such company to debut following Lyft’s IPO on 29 March but more importantly it will be one of the biggest IPO ever. In this report we present the company business model, opportunities and challenges and outly things you should now about the first trading day.

Bitcoin price is rallying again – it is up 73% from a low seen back in December 2018. While a surge in price is clear and systematic, motives behind the move are less obvious. In this analysis we focus on the stories that are linked to a recent rally and analyze the BITCOIN chart.