This week was slightly shorter than normal as the stock market was closed on Friday for Good Friday. The stock market has been closed on Good Friday since at least 1864 (the year they started making records), with only 3 exceptions: 1898, 1906, and 1907 (although it remains unclear why it was open). This makes Good Friday the only non-federal holiday (for the US) that the stock market is closed. For investors in US stocks, this might have been beneficial as most major indices were down this week. In the US the S&P500, the DJIA, and the Nasdaq composite were all down, with the Nasdaq being down the most (2.63%). 

In Europe the story was roughly the same as the AEX, the DAX 30 and the FTSE 100 were all down, with the DAX being down the most at 0.84%. The exception was the CAC 40 which was up 0.62% in the days leading up to Good Friday. This also affected the Eurostoxx 50 which was down 0.25%.

The economic calendar of this week was packed, with the most important thing the meeting of the ECB. After the meeting the ECB announced that it was planning to end the purchases of bonds under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) in Q3 of this year. This wasn’t exactly an easter miracle given that inflation has been spiraling out of control in the Eurozone. ECB president Lagarde also warned that inflation is above the ECB’s long-term inflation target of 2%. She avoided talk about rate hikes, but did mention that it could come a week or months after the end of the bond purchase programme. Nevertheless, the ECB remained cautious and stated that their policies are flexible and can quickly change.

This is in stark contrast with some other countries such as Canada, New Zealand and South Korea where the central banks hiked the interest rates during the past week. Furthermore, New York Fed president John Williams said that the Fed should reasonably consider hiking the interest rates by half a percentage point at its next meeting in May. This also has an effect on the forex market, as a hike in interest rates has a positive effect on the value of a currency. The interest hikes and the stance against more rate hikes might partially explain why the USD has significantly appreciated against the Euro. Thus, investors should keep an eye on further rate hikes as foreign exchange rates can impact portfolio returns.

Next week European stock exchanges will only be open for 4 days, as the stock market remains closed on Easter Monday. Thus, investors that want to make a trade on Monday are limited to the US and Canadian stock exchanges.

Competition

We all love a good comeback story and what comeback story is better than that of Easter. In our competition there is much that can be said for groups rising from the dead and some who seem to be unable to move once they’ve been hurt. so, lets see who has risen from the grave and who did not make it past the cross: 

Next generation did not make a great splash at the virtual competition, finishing 33rd with a return of -7,7% but they bided their time -waited three weeks instead of three days- and raised themselves from the grave by currently holding the 4th position in the leaderboard with an M2 of 3,77% in the Flow Traders investment competition. Than the less then Jesus-like figure, Conquistadores Capital; while being the winners in last year's competition, they have had -to put it mildly- a terrible go of it in the virtual investment competition, coming stone dead last with an unholy -57,8% return. In the investment competition they are not doing much better, currently occupying the 33rd place. One should hope that there is a miracle still to come because at the moment they are definitely on the cross and suffering.