UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has said that the country’s booster vaccination program and rules in place since before Christmas should be sufficient to weather a record wave of Covid-19 sweeping the country without the need for tighter restrictions, despite the NHS under growing strain. With around 1 million people in the UK self-isolating and over 200,000 testing positives on Monday, there could be some changes coming to the isolating period with experts leading calls for isolating periods to start after a positive lateral flow test and not waiting for the result of a PCR test.
Goldman Sachs believes Bitcoin could hit $100,000 if “Investors continue to treat it like gold”. As Cryptocurrency is expecting to increase 50% over the next five years, Bitcoin’s price would increase to just over that level. However, the true value remains up for debate.
Stocks in Asia dropped during trading hours, whilst European futures open slightly lower as technology shares decline due to investors worrying over interest rate increases. The US Federal Reserve is expecting to raise rates at least three times starting from May to counter price pressures, with the Fed’s meeting minutes set to be watched closely as it decided to wind down bond-buying.
| Share Index | Prev. Close | Open |
| FTSE100 | 7505.15 | 7505.15 |
| DAX | 16152.61 | 16177.44 |
| CAC40 | 7317.41 | 7320.48 |