Bitcoin regains its shine in the market

london — Wall Street dipped pm Friday after four straight days of rises as vote counting across US battleground states showed Democrat Joe Biden poised for victory.

Previous sessions across the week had seen strong gains on US election developments and ahead of American jobs data, which Friday showed US unemployment drop a full point to 6.9 per cent in October, a greater-than-expected fall.

The S&P 500 was down 0.5 per cent in early trading, though it remains on pace for its best week since April. It had jumped at least 1.2 per cent in each of the last four days, with the gains accelerating after results from Tuesday’s election indicated control of Congress may remain split between Democrats and Republicans.

That raised investors’ expectations that business-friendly policies may stick around, regardless of who wins the presidency.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.5 per cent as of 0950ET, and the Nasdaq composite was down one per cent.

Despite some profit-taking on Friday, stocks have surged over the week on the prospect of a Biden win, on the assumption that would pave the way to a bigger fiscal stimulus package than if Trump was reelected, noted Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst with ThinkMarkets.

Meanwhile a “Republican-controlled senate will make it unlikely that Trump’s corporate tax cuts will be rolled back”, he added.

Federal Reserve head Jerome Powell on Thursday said more US stimulus was “absolutely essential” to support the economy.

Heading into the election, Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a deal owing to disputes on the stimulus amount. The prospect of further monetary easing measures from the Fed and a new stimulus have weighed on the dollar, however, boosting safe-haven investment gold.

Tokyo was the highlight in Asia as the

Nikkei jumped 0.9 per cent for its highest close in 29 years. Hong Kong inched up 0.1 per cent, while the Shanghai Composite retreated 0.2 per cent.

In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 closed flat, while Frankfurt’s DAX 30 and Paris’ CAC 40 lost 0.7 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively.

Gold shines

Gold rose on Friday en route to its best week in more than three months as the dollar slid on uncertainty surrounding the US election outcome, with bets for continued pandemic-led stimulus and accommodative monetary policy bolstering bullion’s appeal.

Spot gold prices increased by 0.2 per cent to $1,953.21 per ounce by 1213GMT.

Prices jumped by 2.4 per cent on Thursday, setting them up for a 3.9 per cent weekly gain, which would be gold’s best since late July.

US gold futures rose 0.4 per cent to $1,954.20.

“The outlook for gold is positive,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, citing the political uncertainty weighing on the dollar.

“It could get messy... the US Federal Reserve is likely to be much more interventionist as a result, because politicians will be too busy squabbling, and the dollar will continue to fall.” —