The fourth trading session on stock exchanges in Europe, the USA and Asia brought another wave of sales on the main stock markets. The main factors that push the valuation down are: 1) escalation of the conflict in the Middle East 2) problems with liquidity in the US financial sector. On the spot market, the Nasdaq is currently up by 1.45% and the Dow Jones by 1.3%. In Europe, the DAX lost 0.29%, France's CAC40 fell 0.71% and Poland's WIG20 lost 0.65%. Oil is strengthening today as Brent returns above $101 a barrel. It is interesting, however, that there is a lot of conflicting information about this commodity today. The Russian leadership has announced that it intends to respond to any flows with fire and is preparing the ground for new fronts/fights if Israel and the US continue to flow into the country's energy infrastructure. Trump said today that the most important issue is regime change, while the rise in oil prices is secondary. At the same time, we learned of the White House's plans to temporarily suspend the so-called Jones Act, a 1920 law that requires ships built in the US, owned by US companies and manned by US crews to transport goods between US territories. At the same time, the response to the conflict was mitigated by the announcement by the German viceroy that there are no plans to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Back to the stock market. One of the weakest segments at the beginning of the American session was banks and general finance – the pressure comes from two sources: concerns about the growth of the price of money in the environment of high oil prices and from the growing problems in the private credit segment. Morgan Stanley has limited the ability to buy back shares in its North Haven Private Income Fund after investors applied to buy back about 11% of the shares, while the fund's bylaws allow it to pay out only 5% per quarter. This mistrust is further strengthened by criticism from companies such as Glendon Capital, which, among other things, accuse Blue Owl of underestimating the real losses of portfolios. The market interprets this as a signal that the problems may be deeper than the official valuations show. On the forex market, the US dollar is once again performing best, followed by the strengthening Canadian dollar. On the contrary, we see the biggest declines in Antipodean currencies. The strength of the dollar is also reflected in precious metals today. Gold prices (GOLD) are down 0.8% at $5,100. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is copying the sentiment on Wall Street, with the cryptocurrency losing 0.7%, although it is still defending the psychological border of $70,000.
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