Investors continue to move away from risk, the demand for protective assets is growing

China's virus spread continues to put pressure on markets, the number of victims has already risen to 17,investors are concerned about the possibility of developmentepidemics. Asian stock exchanges are trading in the red zone - the Shanghai Composite index is losing about 2.7%, the yuan is weakening against the dollar today by 0.3%. Russian stock exchanges are following Asia - the Moscow Exchange and RTS indices are down by about 0.7% at the opening. American markets traded calmly the day before. Thus, the S&P500 index yesterday grew by a slight 0.03% on the publication of corporate reports and data on sales in the secondary housing market in the United States.

Investors continue to move away from risk, the demand for defensive assets is growing, the yield on US 10-year Treasury bonds is already 1.73% per annum.

Meanwhile, in Davos, US President D. Trump again threatened tariffs to Europe, saying that the EU “has no choice but to conclude a deal” and noted that he would like to conclude it before the presidential election in the United States. French Finance Minister Le Mayor said that the introduction of the "digital tax" will be postponed until December at least, and the decision will be made after discussion at the OECD.

Today, markets will focus onECB meeting, which will discuss the prospects of monetary policy. In addition, the chairman of the bank, Christine Lagarde, will hold a press conference at which he will highlight issues of revising the long-term strategy of the regulator, which may affect investor expectations and the euro.

The fall in oil prices continues, due toThere remains a decline in risk appetite due to news from China. In addition, last night data from the American Petroleum Institute was published on an increase in oil reserves by 1.6 million barrels. and petroleum products by 8 million barrels. in USA. Official data from the US Department of Energy will be published this evening; analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect an increase in reserves of only 800 thousand barrels. Brent is losing more than 1% today, trading near $62.3/barrel, although it started the week above $65.5/barrel. Today the market is awaiting data on oil and petroleum product reserves according to the US Department of Energy.

Our expectations.The ruble is slightly weakening this morning,is trading near 61.9 rubles / $. We do not think that in the near future the exchange rate will rise significantly above 62 rubles / $, but fundamental factors will continue to put pressure on the national currency in the medium term
Source: https://clck.ru/M2Cre