U.S. equity index futures pointed to early gains and fresh record highs, following Asian markets higher, as European shares were mixed and oil was little changed, although it is unclear if anyone noticed with bitcoin stealing the spotlight, after futures of the cryptocurrency began trading on Cboe Global Markets.
Submitted by Rajan Dhall MSTA and Shant Movsesian from fxdailyterminal.com
The gradual acceptance of digital currencies, with major exchanges about to launch bitcoin futures trading, may prompt some oil producing nations to ditch the US dollar in crude trade in favor of cryptocurrencies, an oil analyst says.
As RT reports, Russia, Iran and Venezuela have more than one thing in common.
All three are major oil producing nations dependent on the dollar since the global crude market is traditionally dominated by contracts denominated in US currency.
MODERN JUGGERNAUTS LIKE APPLE DON’T EVEN COME CLOSE
The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.
Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist
Before speculative bubbles could form around Dotcom companies (late-1990s) or housing prices (mid-2000s), Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes that some of the first financial bubbles formed from the prospect of trading with faraway lands.
Looking back, it’s pretty easy to see why.
A few months ago, we noted that the Bank of Japan had decided to throw every textbook out of the window and crank their plunge-protection to '11'after reports surfaced that they owned a staggering 75% of Japan's ETFs.
The BOJ first started their buying spree in December 2010 - when they held no ETFs at all - and have since accumulated some $150 billion in aggregate holdings. The buying was all as part of unprecedented "economic stimulus" which has undoubtedly contributed to the Nikkei 225 Stock Average surging roughly 125% since December 2010.