NOTABLE MOVES
As of Fri, Jan 11, 08:00 Singapore Time zone UTC+8
USDJPY, +0.15%, $108.33
EURUSD, -0.31%, $1.1507
GBPUSD, -0.29%, $1.2752
USDCAD, +0.23%, $1.3240
AUDUSD, +0.21%, $0.7186
NZDUSD, -0.05%, $0.6784
S&P500, +0.45%, 2,596.64.
Nasdaq, +0.42%, 6,986.07
Nikkei Futures, -0.72%, 20,272.0
CURRENCY MARKET WRAP
- There were no notable prints on Thursday. The latest news from the US-China talks produced little fresh results and the impasse on US government shutdown shows little signs of being resolved, although pressure grows on the White House every day as nearly 1 million federal employees continue to work without a pay check. Trump tweeted he will no longer attend Davos World Economic Forum amid the partial government shutdown.
- Fed Chair Powell on Thursday stressed again the U.S. central bank can be patient in approving any further rate increases as officials gauge whether the U.S. economy will slow this year.With no sign of excessive inflation or outsized risk in financial markets, Powell said the Fed would be “waiting and watching” in coming months to see which of those two competing narratives plays out.
STOCK MARKET WRAP
- The S&P 500 gained 0.45% on Thursday, extending its winning streak to five straight sessions. It wasn’t easy, as investors wrestled with some earnings warnings and some comments from Fed Chair Powell, but the story of the day once again involved buying the intraday dips and the market remaining resilient to selling efforts. The S&P 500 lost as much as -0.9% shortly after the start of trading amid a prevailing sense that the broader market may have gotten overbought on a short-term basis.
Samsung NEXT Technical Director Values Decentralization Above Blockchain
Decentralization is a more important phenomenon than blockchain, a senior executive at South Korean tech giant Samsung said in an interview with computing magazine JAX . Speaking about the future of blockchain, Ricardo J. Méndez, Technical Director at the firm’s innovative technology arm Samsung NEXT, forecast a consolidation of the space in the coming year, but underscored the importance of reshaping centralized structures. Mendez explained: “ Blockchain is just one more tool, and one that can help in decentralized contexts, but a tool is always less important than the goal,” adding that “Peer-to-peer approaches require you to broadcast your activity to peers, so they need an extra privacy layer (like a VPN or mix network). This is why, as an industry, we need to get better at explaining to users the trade-offs of different approaches.”
US Dept. of Energy Grants $4.8 Million to Fund Research of Tech Including Blockchain
The Department of Energy (DOE) of the United States has announced $4.8 million in funding for university research of technologies including blockchain. The funding has been announced by the department’s office of fossil energy. Projects eligible for funding include those researching emerging technologies, “such as blockchain and decentralized, peer-to-peer [P2P] internet protocols” to secure data from fossil power generation sensors. The developed systems would be used to securely process data from the sensors and other unspecified information flows within distributed sensor networks for fossil-based power generation systems. The DOE said it “anticipates selecting up to 12 projects” to receive the funding allocation.
Crypto Exchange Gate.io Confirms 51% Attack on Ethereum Classic, Promises Refunds
Researchers from crypto exchange Gate.io report they have confirmed that a 51 percent attack successfully occurred on the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain. Gate.io Research has published its analysis of ETC transactions on its platform during the alleged attack, claiming it has detected seven rollback transactions — four of which were reportedly conducted by the attacker, transferring a total of 54,200 ETC. The incident occurred over a period of 4 hours between 0:40 and 4:20 Jan.7, 2019 UTC, during which the transactions were normally confirmed on the blockchain and then subsequently invalidated after the malign network rollback. Gate.io states it will compensate its users’ losses but also advises other crypto trading platforms to block transactions stemming from the identified suspect addresses.