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S&P 500 Rallies As U.S. Dollar Pulls Back Towards Weekly Lows
Key Insights
The strong pullback in the U.S. dollar provided significant support to stocks.
Treasury yields have pulled back after touching new highs, which served as an additional positive catalyst for S&P 500.
A move above 3730 will push S&P 500 towards the resistance level at 3760.
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Pfizer Rallies After Announcing A Huge Price Hike For Its COVID-19 Vaccines
S&P 500 is currently trying to settle above 3730 as traders’ appetite for risk is growing. The U.S. dollar has recently gained strong downside momentum as the BoJ intervened to stop the rally in USD/JPY. Weaker U.S. dollar is bullish for stocks as it increases profits of multinational companies and makes U.S. equities cheaper for foreign investors.
The leading oil services company Schlumberger is up by 9% after beating analyst estimates on both earnings and revenue. Schlumberger’s peers Baker Hughes and Halliburton have also enjoyed strong support today.
Vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna gained strong upside momentum after Pfizer announced that it will raise the price of its coronavirus vaccine to $110 – $130 per shot.
Biggest losers today include Verizon and Twitter. Verizon is down by 5% despite beating analyst estimates on both earnings and revenue. Subscriber numbers missed estimates, and traders pushed the stock to multi-year lows.
Twitter stock moved towards the $50 level as the U.S. may conduct a security review of Musk’s purchase of the company.
From a big picture point of view, today’s rebound is broad, and most market segments are moving higher. Treasury yields have started to move lower after testing new highs, providing additional support to S&P 500. It looks that some traders are ready to bet that Fed will be less hawkish than previously expected.
S&P 500 Tests Resistance At 3730
S&P 500 has recently managed to get above the 20 EMA and is trying to settle above the resistance at 3730. RSI is in the moderate territory, and there is plenty of room to gain additional upside momentum in case the right catalysts emerge.
If S&P 500 manages to settle above 3730, it will head towards the next resistance level at 3760. A successful test of this level will push S&P 500 towards the next resistance at October highs at 3805. The 50 EMA is located in the nearby, so S&P 500 will likely face strong resistance above the 3800 level.
On the support side, the previous resistance at 3700 will likely serve as the first support level for S&P 500. In case S&P 500 declines below this level, it will move towards the next support level at 3675. A move below 3675 will push S&P 500 towards the support at 3640.
The Rise of Telecommunications Services in the Developing World
Telecommunications services have become a ubiquitous presence in our modern times, with cell phones and computers as our main tools for communication. In the United States, Europe, and other developed nations, we seem to take for granted the access we have to these devices and the ease at which we can acquire them. For third world and developing nations, the availability of these services lags behind, which has a palpable effect on their economies and quality of life. Research, however, has indicated that these nations are catching up.Consider that in 2005, about 2 billion people had a mobile or cellular subscription service. At the end of 2014, 7 billion people had some type of subscription, with 3.6 billion in the Asia/Pacific region alone. In terms of percentages, that is about 96 percent of the world’s population.When viewed through the lens of developed versus developing nations, research indicates that there are 128 subscriptions per 100 people in developed nations, versus 89 per 100 people in developing countries. While there remains room for expansion in developing nations, the rate of subscription growth has reached its lowest levels in a decade, meaning the market is approaching a saturation point.Telecommunications services also include access to the Internet, which has a much smaller reach when juxtaposed with cellular services. Three billion people are online, which represents about 40 percent of the world’s population. For developed nations, 78 per 100 people use the Internet, versus 32 per 100 people in developing nations. This is a much bigger gap than the one seen in cell phone usage, indicating these nations still have a long way to go. Of the 1.1 billion households not connected to the Internet, 90 percent are in developing countries.How can these nations catch up? Luckily, due to the expansion of telecommunications services and companies, broadband prices have dropped significantly over the past decade. In obvious economic terms, the cheaper the product, the wider the accessibility. Africa is notably the farthest behind in terms of broadband connectivity, with the continent accounting for 0.5 percent of the world’s fixed broadband subscriptions.Telecommunications companies are beginning to enter Africa, as many of its nations are emerging economic markets. With investment from the telecommunications industry, it is more than probable that access to the Internet will gradually climb similarly to that of the cellular market. While it is unlikely that these countries will reach the connectivity of the developed world, the level of infrastructure for communications will improve drastically with outside investments pouring in. Consider the case of Nigeria: about a decade ago, there were 100,000 phone lines, mostly landlines operated by the state-run company NITEL. That company folded, and now there are over 100 million mobile phone lines.In a world where quick, easy, and mobile communication is the norm, it is important to these nations to reach modern levels of telecommunications. It is hugely significant for their economies and also for simple access to information. The Internet and cellular phones have condensed the size of the world, allowing us the ability to communicate with anyone at any time.