The end of the week came out quite balanced with all three major stock markets out of New York reporting barely any fluctuation for the closing numbers. The Dow Jones closed even today, at 31,494.32. The NASDAQ closed up 0.07% to close at 13,874.46 and the S&P 500 closed down 0.19% to finish at 3,906.71. STOXX Europe saw slightly better increases today, of 0.53% to close at 414.88.
Bitcoin has reached the trillion-dollar market value club, hitting an all-time high on Friday. In fact, currently a single bitcoin costs $55,000, with approximately 18.6 million currently in circulation (out of a possible 21 million). Currently, the company comes in number five on the list of highest value companies after Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet. Many companies are starting to jump on the bandwagon and allow bitcoin to be used on their platforms, and that’s definitely helping to boost its ratings. Just this year (over the last two months) Bitcoin has risen by over 80%, which means it’s definitely on an upward trend.
Many businesses are starting to look for ways to aid the vaccine rollout and help employees and communities to get the vaccine. More than that, they are looking for ways to encourage people that they should get the vaccine and that it will help the country and the economy as a whole.
“The business community has an important role to play in sharing with employees and the broader communities where they operate the importance of vaccination to help defeat the pandemic and lead our country toward a robust economic recovery,” said Joshua Bolten, president and CEO of Business Roundtable, in a statement.
According to research most American workers (71%) trust their employer to tell them when they should be returning to work and now companies are hoping that they will be able to encourage those same workers to get the vaccine. Some companies included in this process include Amazon, Apple, ViacomCBS, Target, and Verizon.
Oil prices closed down significantly today, by 2.12% to close at $59.24 per barrel. This after the huge storm in Texas shut down a large share of U.S. oil production. Gold prices rose slightly today, by 0.42%, to close at $1,784.28 per ounce. And finally the treasury yield is back on an upward trajectory. The 10 year yield closed at 1.34 while the 30 year yield closed at 2.14. This marks the highest numbers for both over the entire month.
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