Markets are not performing steady in the last day of the trading week as technology stocks in Asia and Europe are facing a sell off. Meanwhile Cuba elects new president and Armenia is drowning in riots.
For the first time since 1959 revolution Castro family is not heading Cuba anymore. Yesterday the National Assembly of the Freedom Island has elected a new leader. Now instead 86-year-old Raul Castro the seat of Cuban leader is occupied by 58-year-old Miguel Diaz Canel. He has been an important figure in Cuban politics since 2013 being the right hand for Castro.
For now Canel is the only one among the ruling top of Cuba who didn’t take any part in Cuban revolution. After all he was born a year after it came to an end. He is an engineer according to his diploma and quickly came to understand that his real career is in the politics. Until his 34th birthday he already was the head of Cuban communist party in his native region. In 2009 he gained the position of Minister of Education of Cuba.
After the election was over Canel took the floor in front of Cuban parliament and gave a speech that was meant to make world society realize, new leader does not mean new international policies, especially when it comes to relationship with America. He said, that Cuba will not be broken by the “powerful imperialist neighbor” and the allusion is quite understandable here. He also stated: "There is no room for a transition that ignores or destroys the legacy of so many years of struggle. We will always be disposed to have dialogue and cooperation under terms of respect and equal treatment. There will be no space for those who aspire for a restoration of capitalism. We will defend the revolution."
Cuban-American relationship were already worsened after Trump took the power in White House. President Obama tried to soften the relations between the two countries and lifted some bans off of Cuba, while Trump reversed all the changes. Although such measures may only be good for Cuban economy as now the government has to seek different and more effective means for economy boosting.
For almost a week now Armenia is withstanding a revolution held by thousands of people. The protestors want ex-president of the country Serzh Sargsyan to be drawn away from the power, as the ex-president now holding the position of the prime minister and technically has more power than he used to while taking presidential seat.
Protestors in the streets of Yerevan – Armenian’s capital city - are shouting “Take a step, throw Sargsyan away!”. The crowd is sometimes taking a stand in front of governmental buildings to make their statement. It primarily consists of young people. One of them said to the press “We hope that Sargsyan will leave. But I don’t think it will happen unless we take some serious measures”.
Life in Yerevan is at a standstill. But the cause for what initially started as peaceful meetings ismore than noble. It is said that Sargsyan is corrupt and fully responsible for social tensions in the country and even violates basic human rights of Armenian citizens. Some of the protestors are saying that Sargsyan is alike to Russian president Vladimir Putin who after his presidential term went on to become a prime minister of Russia in 2008 only to come back to power 4 years after that.
According to the protestors Sargsyan never fulfilled his promises that were given during presidential campaign. For example he claimed that after his turn would be over back in 2014 he will not go for neither presidential nor ministerial seat. Rioters want people to know that their campaign in neither pro-Russian not pro-Western. Hundreds of people have already been arrested and/or injured by the police force of the country.
After Mark Zuckerberg talked to the Senate about the privacy issues and how they landed Facebook into much controversy it was expected that Facebook stock is going to go down, as the founder of the most popular social network in the market acknowledged that there was indeed leakage and that it was all his fault. But the situation took an unexpected turn.
After the testimony Zuckerberg earned $4.3 billion as the Facebook stock went up 4.5 percent - $166..32 per stock, according to the data given by NASDAQ Index. This jump was the biggest one since April 2016. Marketcap of Facebook went up by 21 billion USD and is now $483 billion. Zuckerberg himself is now an owner of $67.5 billion.
Yesterday’s performance by Asian market wasn’t as satisfying as the traders hoped. In fact the market went low and took European stocks with itself. Technology shares felt the pressure as well and were the subject to a sell off.
Stoxx Europe 600 lost 0.2 percent.
Topix from Japan gained less than 0.1 percent.
Kospi is 0.4 percent lighter today.
S&P 500 Futures fell by 0.1 percent.
DAX from Germany is lower by 0.1 percent.
Dollar is at the highest point in almost 3 weeks against the basket of six major currencies with 0.1 percent gain.
Euro grew by less than 0.05 percent - $1.2348.
Pound, although greased the strongest mark in almost 22 months this week is now ate about two-month low after having shed 0.2 percent - $1.406 per pound.
Yen lost 0.1 percent – 107.50 yen per dollar for today.
WTI lost 0.2 percent - $68.16 per barrel.
Gold retreated by 0.1 percent - $1.343.56 per ounce and is now at the weakest point in almost a week.