To buying and selling friends across the country. We begin with dom chu with the latest numbers. Its green across the screen, but the tech trade, which has been the leader for the last several days, and even months and quarters and years at this point, is the underperformer in todds trade. Well go through that in a moment. Its the dow up nearly 300 points, three quarters of a 1 gain there. So a laggard is the leader in todays trade. The s p 500, the broader measure, 5170 the last trade there, up about 20 points. At the highs, we were up 23. So near session highs. We were down 18 points at the lows of the session. Up one half of 1 there. And the nasdaq composite up 16,151, up 48 points, roughly 1 3 of 1 . So its the laggard in todays trade. I mentioned the technology trade. Crypto is part of that narrative right now. Bitcoin prices, currently down about 3. 5 , 64,800 and change. Remember, just in the last several days, bitcoin prices were above 73,000. Eit ether prices were above 4,000.
Haidi welcome to daybreak australia. Im haidi stroudwatts in sydney. Paul we are counting down to Major Trading opens this hour with u. S. Stocks at alltime highs in the runup to fridays drop support with jay powell saying the fed is not far from the confidence needed to cut rates. Dovish signals too from the ecb with Christine Lagarde suggesting lowering borrowing costs us soon as june. Paul President Biden to deliver his state if the Union Election pitch making the case for his second term and a likely rematch with donald trump yet haidi a right decision crossing the bloomberg now with perot central bank leaving the reference rate on hold at 6. 25 . The forecast from Bloomberg Economics was a cut. Nearly all analysts in the survey saw the key rate falling to 6 . We saw inflation speeding to 3. 29 in february still above target. That expectation still that they would cut to the lowest level, more than 1. 5 years, that has not been carried through from the peru central bank. They left
Battle for dominance ahead. Lets check in on the markets. Caroline the nasdaq is coming off of its highs. The mood dips a little bit with the strikes being protracted when it comes to the auto sector. When you look at the inflationary pressures, its easing off of bit so we are up by. 62 . On the twoyear at 5. 04 and the bloomberg dollar is down by 1. 3 . Lets look at us i the dollar and bitcoin is slower. 26,870. Going into the mic removes when it comes to stocks. Ed there is no hyperbolic mover. I know were looking close at google and the antitrust case. Back in 2020, apple was considering buying being from microsoft. That has played in whats happening with the court with the testimony weve had about the relationship between google and search. Its interesting to see apple up for a second day. We want to get to the index levels. We are moderately higher on the week but we are snapping, there are three straight weeks of losses. If the fed rate is higher for longer does that make mega ca
Progress. More on that story in a moment. As ukraine faces a second winter of war, it is suffering heavy losses on the battlefield, but the military does not release figures for those killed and injured. The bbc has been given access to one of the main hospitals receiving casualties from the front lines. Doctors there have treated more than 20,000 Wounded Soldiers since russias full scale invasion in february 2022, many of them amputees. From south eastern ukraine, our International Correspondent 0rla guerin reports. Sirens. Under a blanket of darkness, the wounded are brought in. On arrival each one is numbered. Each one a husband, a father or a son. This is the pain of a generation. Staff here treat 50 to 100 new casualties every day. Another badly wounded soldier has just been brought in. Hes in his 20s and one of his legs has already been amputated. This is where you can see the cost of the war, the cost for soldiers, the cost for ukraine and theres no let up, the casualties keep c
15. 8 . The expectation was 14. 5. Kind of a mixed picture. It seems like that export picture will be the same. Butct here in large part, asia demand will be the big question as that is expected betty the biggest is a good segue to ask you about some of the asian Tech Companies. , know we have got this chart talking about amazon with a nice comparison with amazon still huge in market cap against the big asian Tech Companies like alibaba and tencent. Do you see Companies Like that following the lead of amazon . Mark i can cover alibaba, they surprised the market two weeks ago giving and outlook for almost 50 . They are benefiting from some of the same growth amazon has in the past, different ways of facebook and google. They are doing it in a market where they have an unusually strong market share. Alibaba china is greater than amazon, and it can sustain at those levels. I dont think i think the valuation is good for both sides. The basic underlying driver is you have secular growth wit