UK PM makes election push; Amazon falls

Summary:

• UK PM Johnson makes election push

• GBP set to post weekly decline

• Amazon falls as earnings disappoint 

• Death cross possible on Bitcoin

News that Boris Johnson will make a 3rd attempt to call a general election at the start of next week caused a flurry of activity in the pound, but after the initial knee jerk reaction there has been little lasting impact due to the belief that there’s a good chance this could fail once more. The PM has earmarked December 12th as a possible date for the vote, which means time is very much of the essence in calling a ballot. Due to the fixed term parliament act, he would require a 2/3rds majority to succeed and despite claims from the opposition that they want an election it seems that they will likely not support it and therefore the current impasse could drag on and on.

On the day GBP is little changed with the focus being on the French position regarding an extension to the Brexit deadline. France are reportedly digging in their heels to grant the extension but it still seems likely that when it comes to it they will accept the terms proposed for a new January 31st deadline. The pound is losing ground on the week after a strong run higher of late. The largest declines can be seen against the Canadian dollar which has performed well after Monday’s election outcome.

One of the highlights of the current earnings season is Amazon’s latest figures and unfortunately for investors in the tech giant they have come in as something of a disappointment. Earnings fell for the first time in more than two years which caused the stock to swoon in after-hours trade by as much as 9%, but while it opened lower by around 4% it has since recovered around half of those declines at the time of writing. 

This week has not been the best for cryptocurrencies to say the least. A huge decline that occurred on Bitcoin on Wednesday (it took only 15 minutes take BTC down by 7.5%!) weighed on other digital currencies. Overall market capitalization has fallen $12 billion as a result of this week’s losses. This substantial pullback may have had something to do with Zuckerberg’s hearing as well as the Facebook’s project called Libra. Let us remind that last week we wrote about seven payment processors withdrawing their support for the Libra project. You can read more on this and other news for cryptocurrencies in our latest weekly newsletter here.