Daily Summary: Relief Friday on the markets!

• Risk assets launch a relief rally

• Major indices traded from Western Europe traded over 2% higher

• Wall Street rallies, Nasdaq-100 up over 3%

• Cryptocurrencies recover, Bitcoin back above $30,000

• Brent jumps above $110 per barrel

• Gold tested $1,800 but failed to break below

• AUD and CAD strongest among G10 currencies, USD and JPY lag

• UoM Consumer Sentiment with big miss in April

• China wants to limited foreign travel, Shanghai provides timeline on lockdown-end

• Elon Musk says Twitter deal on hold

After a tough week for risk assets, Friday brought a relief. Wall Street indices managed to halt declines and finished mixed yesterday but a real rally came today. Nasdaq and Russell 2000 are up more than 3%, S&P 500 trades almost 2% higher on the day and Dow Jones gains almost 1%. Solid US session came after the European indices book big gains, with major indices from Western Europe trading over 2% higher on the day. Risk-on rally was seen also on oil and cryptocurrency markets. Brent recovered above $110 per barrel and is on the way for a weekly gain. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies jumped as stablecoins stabilized and further de-pegging was prevented. Bitcoin jumped back above $30,000 and tested the $31,000 area. However, part of those gains was erased already.

Economic calendar today was rather empty with University of Michigan consumer sentiment data being the only noteworthy print. Headline index as well as Current Conditions and Expectations subindices missed significantly. However, inflation expectations remain unchanged while the market expected them to rise.

While earnings calendar for today lacked release from any major companies, Twitter investors had no reasons to complain for little action. Elon Musk tweeted that a deal was temporarily put on hold pending details on the number of fake and spam accounts on the social media platform. This has sent Twitter shares 20% lower in premarket. However, part of the loss was recovered later on when Musk said that he remains committed to the acquisition.

Russell 2000 (US2000) is one of the best performing Wall Street indices today. Small-cap index recovers after executing downside breakout from a trading range in a textbook manner. Source: xStation5