Indices:
After a weak start to the year, the most important US indices picked up on Friday. The S&P
500 is back up at 4.697 points. The Dow Jones stabilized at 37.466 points. The technology-
heavy Nasdaq is back at 14.524 points. The shaky start to the week is due to the
downgrading of Apple at Barclays and the consequence of the Dutch export restriction of
ASML on Nvidia. All the indices rallied on Friday to make up for the weak start to the week.
Bonds & Rates:
US mortgage rates increased for the first time since October. In the first week of the year,
both the 2-YR and 10-YR U.S. Treasury increased to 4.395 respectively 4.051.
Commodities:
Gold has seen a relatively quiet start to 2024. The price of gold fell 1% during the week to
2,049.8$. Silver had a slight increase this recent week and stabilized at 23.19$/oz. Copper is
estimated by experts from GS and Citigroup to rise significantly in the next 2 years. Both
crude oil benchmarks, WTI and Brent, are back in an upward trend after falling sharply at the
end of December.
Cryptocurrencies:
On Friday night, Bitcoin briefly rose to over $44.000 before falling back to $43.800 during the
day. Bitcoin remains volatile in the run-up to a decision by the SEC on a possible BTC-Spot-
ETF.
Currencies:
The dollar remained stable on Friday despite mixed data indicating that the world's largest
economy has some weaknesses but is robust overall. The dollar index (DXY) settled at 102.43
on Friday after rising to 103.1, the highest since mid-December following the strong US jobs
report.
Flow Traders Investment Competition Update
2024 has started and it has already been a week to forget for most investors, but not for our new competition leaders Merx! They are back in first place of the Flow Traders Investment Competition after losing the lead four weeks ago. Also former competition leader Webb Ellis Investments seem to be back on the right track, by jumping 16 spots in the ranking they are back in the top 15. Will they be able to find their way back into the top 10 of the Flow Traders Investment Competition? Meanwhile, for Hera Moneta the year could not have started much worse... After losing 2.26% last week they have dropped 18 spots straight into 'het rechter rijtje'. Will they be able to come back after this loss?
