Oil price dropping below $35, Spain getting ready for polls and major confusion in Bank of Japan happening are the talk of the day. Let us see in brief what actually happened
1. Bank of Japan confusion
Though Japan’s currency Yen is performing very well after a recovery due to Bank of Japan’s announcement on its new program, there was confusion with Topix finishing the session 1.8 percent lower soon after the announcement. The Bank announced an entirely new facilitating program for the purchase of exchange-traded funds and the financial specialists could figure out a confusion because of that and so much so the markets reversed after the announcement.
2. Oil Price fall
Next talk is about the drop in Oil price again which went below $35 for a barrel. This was the effect of strengthening of dollar rate which happened due to rise in Federal Reserve’s interest rate. The natural Gas level in US has touched a very low level in past 15 years and the impact of cold weather also has its negative effect on the energy prices and the oil price at New york Mercantile Exchange is #34.74, again below the $35 mark and further low in London by another 21 cents.
3. Misfortune in Hedge Fund Industry
A complete downfall happened in the year 2015 in the hedge fund industry. Throughout the year it has been facing a worse picture only with 674 terminations, maximum of which happened in the third quarter of the year, which were 257. With commodity market facing a worse scenario, reserve money in industrial metal getting deployed, investors feel this is going to be much worser in future. The total funds shrunk to about $2.87 trillion at the end of third quarter with a reduction of about $95 billion in those three months alone.
4. Debt Default by Ukraine
Previously Russian President Putin has borrowed money from his Ukrainian Counterpart Viktor Yanukovych. This happened a couple of years back just before Viktor was out of his president ship. Now Ukraine declared that it is going to default $3 billion which it has borrowed from Russia despite Russian threats of taking it up legally. International Monetary Fund has said that this is an official case as both countries have remained at odds over the payment.
5. Election in Spain
General elections in Spain were held on December 20th 2015. The Podemos party (who have shed their radicalism recently), even though on an upswing, may not get enough seats for a majority for a victory unlike the Syriza’s at Greece. It is likely that the pro-market Ciudadanos may play a crucial role in forming a coalition with Rajoy’s party, whose views match with the pro-business and pro-European Union Ciudadanos. Exit polls will be out after poll closes at 8 p m local time.
