George Soros Increases The Bets Again

Asian Stocks closed lower on Friday on investor concern regarding Friday's U.S non-farm payroll data. The Shanghai index was the worst performing index during the session, dropping nearly -1.39%. Despite the stronger yen, the Nikkei 225 index closed with a mild loss of -0.20% and is down by almost -5.23% for the week. The Hang Seng index also closed with a loss of -4.04% for the week, and was down by -1.21% on Friday.

The U.S. non-farm payroll data was the main player on Friday. According to a MarketWatch survey, most economists expected an addition of 173,000 US jobs in May, up from the previous reading of 165,000 in April.

Back in Asia, A Dow Jones Newswire confirmed that a hedge fund run by the billionaire George Soros increased the bets again by buying Japanese stocks and shorting the yen. Exporters came under pressure due to the strengthening of the yen in Tokyo and the shares of the Toyota Motor Corp., Mazda Motor Corp and Toshiba Corp. all which lost nearly -2.8%, -2.6% and -3.4% respectively.

The European markets traded higher with extreme caution during the early hours of Friday's session. The FTSE MIB was the best performing index during the session, up nearly 0.51%. The IBEX 35, DAX and CAC 40 are all up with a gain of 0.25%, 0.03% and 0.25% respectively. However, the FTSE 100 is still trading lower with a loss of 0.06%, as investors are holding off from any heavy bets.

Shares of the Deutsche Telekom AG traded higher after the company reported it won a contract to provide cloud services to Finnish elevator Company Kone Oyj, MarketWatch reported. BT Group also traded higher after the company received an upgrade in its rating from equal weight to overweight by Barclays.

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The above is for informational purposes only and NOT to be construed as specific trading advice. responsibility for trade decisions is solely with the reader.

by Naeem Aslam