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What Moved Global Markets
- Coronavirus update: Twenty-one people aboard a cruise ship that was barred from docking in San Francisco have tested positive for coronavirus, U.S. officials said on Friday, adding to the more than 100,000 cases of the fast-spreading illness across the world. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany jumped by more than 100 on Saturday, reaching 795.
- Pope Francis cancelled his regular appearances in public to stop crowds gathering to see him amid the outbreak in Italy. Saudi Arabia has postponed the Saudi Games, the kingdom’s largest sporting event, until further notice over coronavirus fears, the Al-Arabiya television station said on Sunday.
- U.S. stocks fell on Friday as fears of economic damage from the spread of the coronavirus intensified, though Wall Street’s major indexes ended well above their session lows.
- Shares of cruise operators Carnival Corp and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd slid after Reuters reported that the administration of President Donald Trump was considering ways to discourage U.S. travellers from taking cruises. Carnival shares fell 2.6%, and Royal Caribbean shares dropped 1.2%. U.S. retailers face an estimated $700 million sales hit from the coronavirus and some shipping lines are sending vessels to retrieve empty cargo containers from Los Angeles to prevent further supply disruptions. The extended shutdown of factories in China caused by the virus, travel restrictions on workers and cancelled sailings by shipping lines have thrown off the movement of containers, resulting in a surplus at the Port of Los Angeles and a shortage in Germany.
- Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, will step up crude oil production from next month, flooding global markets and most likely depressing petrol and diesel prices, in response to Russia’s refusal to join an OPEC plan to cut supplies. State oil giant Aramco will boost its crude output significantly above 10m barrels per day (bpd) in April, after a previous agreement to limit supplies agreed by OPEC and Russia expires at the end of March.
- Sources inside OPEC who have spoken to Reuters said the move is expected to involve 20% price cuts to customers, with an emphasis on targeting those that hold contracts with Russia. A barrel of Brent crude has fallen in price since January by a third to almost $45 a barrel following the coronavirus outbreak. Prices dropped by almost 10% on Friday after news broke that the planned OPEC deal had foundered. On Saturday, Aramco slashed its official selling price for April for all its crude grades to all destinations.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap)
Bitcoin: Down 8.04% to $8,074.20
Total trading volume (24h): $40.44+ billion USD
Ethereum: Down 12.86% to $202.86
Total trading volume (24h): $22.25+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours
Biggest Mover 1: Chromia (CHR) is up 41.77% to $0.031958
Biggest Mover 2: 3X Short Ethereum Token (ETHBEAR) is up 39.57% to $20.91
Biggest Loser: Xtoxk (XTX) is down 66.09% to $0.000225
What moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets)
– The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, is reportedly planning to file a review petition on the Supreme Court’s crypto ruling earlier this week. The RBI is said to be concerned that the ruling could set the stage for crypto trading in India and put the country’s banking system at risk. The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday ruled a judgment, which struck down a circular issued by the RBI that barred banks from serving crypto exchanges and firms. The banking ban prompted several exchanges to file petitions that sought to overturn the RBI move, a process that culminated in Wednesday’s ruling.
– Bitcoin mining equipment maker Canaan has been sued by one of its investors for violating the U.S. security laws. The alleged investor claimed that he purchased 200 shares of CAN near its all-time high on February 12, when CAN surged by over 80%. The complaint stated that Canaan misled investors in its IPO filing.
– After IOTA suffered an attack targeting its official desktop wallet in February and the network went offline on the same day, and has remained down since – on March 6, David Sønstebø, the founder of IOTA, revealed that he will personally fully repay all 46 victims of last month’s IOTA hack to the tune of 8.52 million MIOTA — worth roughly $1.97 million.
Other Specialties
Fintech: Competition in Australia’s banking sector is set to heat up as a new digital player enters the increasingly cut-throat market. Virgin Money Australia – owned by the Bank of Queensland – revealed it will launch a new app-based bank by the end of 2020. The new bank will join a growing number of neobanks’ providing most of the services offered by incumbent institutions through customers’ mobile phones. Australians using these banks have the same legal protections granted to customers of conventional banks.
Healthtech: Digital doctor app Babylon Health is searching for ways to train its artificial intelligence-driven chatbot to detect coronavirus symptoms as the number of cases of the deadly Covid-19 strain rises in the UK. The British start-up, which has been lauded by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, operates an AI chatbot in its GP at Hand app. it claims it can “identify likely causes” of an illness once patients input symptoms.
AI: Chinese technology giant Alibaba recently developed an AI system for diagnosing the COVID-19 (coronavirus). Per a report from Nikkei’s Asian Review (h/t TechSpot), Alibaba claims its new system can detect coronavirus in CT scans of patients’ chests with 96% accuracy against viral pneumonia cases. And it only takes 20 seconds for the AI to make a determination – according to the report, humans generally take about 15 minutes to diagnose the illness as there can be upwards of 300 images to evaluate.
Smart cities: The City of Stockholm plans to deploy the Itron smart city central management software, Streetlight.Vision (SLV) – an intelligent streetlight management system. Stockholm, which was named as the Smart City of 2019 at the Smart City Expo World Congress event in Barcelona last year, has a goal to become the world’s smartest city by 2040 and one of its key use cases is streetlight management.
NexChangeNOW Pick of the Day
Blockchain & AI help contain and combat COVID-19