Your Weekly Trading Review by UFX.com – Sunday, December 24th, 2017
These major financial events set the tone for the past week. Let’s take a look at how they affected the global financial markets:
Gold rose by +0.65%, ending at $1,278.80. Crude Oil rose by +0.19%, closing at $58.47 a barrel. The DOW fell by -0.11%, closing at 24,754.06 while the S&P dropped by -0.05%, closing at 2,683.34. Finally, the NASDAQ decreased by -0.08%, ending at 6,959.96.
Bitcoin Volatility Continues
It has been an extremely unpredictable month for king crypto Bitcoin, which had skyrocketed in value from just under $1,000 at the start of this year. After receiving massive success after launching on the CBOE, Bitcoin dropped under $11,000 on Friday, after beginning the week at a record high of almost $20,000.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange launched Bitcoin Futures contracts on December 10th under the ticker symbol XBT. It fell briefly on Friday by 21% to $12,050 after causing a minor trading pause due to price volatility. The futures settled 8.7% lower at $13,960.
In other cryptocurrency news, Bitcoin Cash tumbled briefly, temporarily falling 40% Friday to $1,873, after peaking $4,000 just 2 days before, according to Coinbase. Bitcoin Cash recovered to trade near $2,897 in afternoon trading.
Wall Street Dips Pre-Holiday
Some of Wall Street’s major indices slipped on Friday in low trading volume before the holiday weekend. Traders are pausing ahead of Christmas on Monday. Big companies such as Nike fell 2.3% amid its struggles in the North American Market.
U.S. exchanges volume summed up to 4.81 billion shares in comparison to the 6.98 billion average for the compete session over the last 20 trading days.
Trump Signs Major Tax Cut
President Donald Trump on Friday signed into law a massive $1.5 Trillion tax bill. American publicly traded companies like AT&T and Boeing will reward employees with bonuses after Trump’s new tax cut takes effect, just in time for the holidays. AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson commented, “This tax reform will drive economic growth and create good-paying jobs.”
The bill decreases corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and also implements a new method of taxing American companies who operate outside of the United States.
That’s our summary of the financial headlines from the past week. Good luck with this week’s trading and stay tuned for the next review from UFX.com.