The dollar was fired up at the last trading session of the week crushing its major currency rivals, Bitcoin, Gold, and leading global Stocks.

The U.S dollar retained its safe-haven status on the account of the U.S Dollar Index settled remarkably higher than a basket of six other global major currencies.

The U.S dollar index gained 0.6% on the day to settle at 90.77.

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What this means

Investors are piling to the U.S dollar after receiving worrying U.S economic data. Retail sales in the world’s largest economy were off 0.7% last month, the third straight drop.

• Such upsides seen in the greenback’s value saw gold at the expense of a charging dollar whose strength astonished metal traders, saw gold futures losing as much as 1.16% to settle at 1,829.90/ounce
• Also at press time the flagship crypto asset, Bitcoin traded at $35,756.99 with a daily trading volume of $70 Billion.
• Bitcoin is down 7.38% for the day.

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Also, the world’s biggest stock market by market volume and liquidity suffered heavy losses, as data showed the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged by 0.57% to settle at 30,814.26 index points, the S&P 500 lost about 0.72% to settle at 3,768.25 and the Nasdaq Composite fell by 0.87% to close at 12,998.50 index points.

The greenback was an outlier at the last trading session despite drops seen in U.S bond yields associated with the benchmark 10-year U.S. note, whose resurgence in the previous week had been the catalyst for the U.S dollar comeback.

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What they are saying

Milan Cutkovic, Market Analyst at Axi, in an explanatory note to Nairametrics, spoke on fundamentals supporting the rebound of the U.S dollar;

• “Many investors continue to stand on the side lines. President-elect Joe Biden unveiled his US$1.9 trillion stimulus plan. There were no major surprises, and a lot of it was already priced in.
• “Investors are now focused on how quickly the Biden administration can implement their plans and support the ailing US economy. Although Biden will be inaugurated on Wednesday, the second impeachment of Donald Trump might overshadow the first few weeks of his term.
• “Investors are also increasingly confronted with the reality that the pandemic is still far from being under control, despite the significant progress that was made in the past few months, and several COVID-19 vaccines already on the market.”

READ: Silver surpasses three-week high, joins Bullish momentum

Bottom line

Investors are increasingly confronted with the reality that the pandemic is still far from being under control, thereby flocking back to the safe-haven currency despite the significant progress that was made in the past few months, and several COVID-19 vaccines already on the market.

Leading U.S tech stocks including Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Amazon, and Google experienced record sell-offs on growing global sentiments that big tech companies are getting out of control.

Such macros weighed heavily on these stocks as evidenced in Monday’s trading session performance for these tech stocks.

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At the end of Monday’s trading session,

• Twitter lost about 6.41%
• Facebook down by 4.01%
• Apple dropped 2.32%
• Google (Alphabet) fell by 2.31%
• Amazon down by 2.15%

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Also, some powerful politicians publicly decried the role these tech brands are having on censoring speech, as senior lawmakers in France and Germany, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, voiced their concerns.

The fall is largely attributed to record sell-offs from investors on account of these tech brands’ decision to permanently ban one of its most popular and powerful users, President Trump, and other leading voices from their social networks.

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What this means

Stock experts further anticipate such a move could deprive fast-rising tech brands of one of their best traffic-generators, as well as risking alienating some people who share the opinion that tech brands like Twitter, Google, Facebook have become too powerful.

Milan Cutkovic, Market Analyst at Axi, in a note to Nairametrics, spoke on the prevailing macros disrupting U.S stocks at least for the near term.

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• “Fears of a global trade war have weighed multiple times on markets during the past few years. While concerns remain, the risk of trade tensions escalating has declined with Biden entering the White House soon.
• “While the US-China relations will remain complex, they could warm up somewhat after four turbulent years. Meanwhile, tech giants, Facebook and Twitter, have found themselves in a political crossfire by blocking US President Trump from their platform, which also weighed on the NASDAQ index.”

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What to expect: The question of whether big tech has become too powerful is likely to lead to some heated discussions in the coming weeks.

An American leading social media company, Twitter, saw its shares drop as much as 8.5% at the start of Monday’s trading session on the New York Stock Exchange.

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The fall is largely attributed to record sell-offs from investors on account of the social media giant’s decision to ban one of its most popular and powerful users, President Trump, permanently from its social network.

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Stock experts further anticipate such a move deprives the fast-rising tech brand of one of its best traffic-generators, as well as risking alienating some people who share the opinion that tech brands like Twitter, Google, Facebook have become too powerful.

READ: Facebook suspends Donald Trump indefinitely

The tech brands are trying to stay away from accusations that they helped fuel the violence during the storming of the Capitol in Washington some days ago by a mob sympathetic to President’s Trump election loss.