FTSE 100 finishes flat, NFP misses expectations, Musk dents crypto recovery By Investing.com

Key Points

• FTSE 100 closing price of 7067.80, +0.05%
• Airlines mostly lower after UK travel plans
• NFP weighs on USD, US yields
• Commodities higher on soft USD
• Cryptos suffer from Musk tweet

By Samuel Indyk

Investing.com – The FTSE 100 finished unchanged in relatively quiet trade despite Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report.

Airlines were again in focus after the government confirmed its international travel plans which included removing Portugal from the ‘green’ list and failed to add any new countries. The news disappointed those in the aviation industry including EasyJet (LON:EZJ), Wizz Air (LON:WIZZ) and jet engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce (LON:RR).

After being lower for much of the morning, the FTSE 100 edged higher after the US nonfarm payrolls report which saw solid job growth but maybe not strong enough to encourage the Fed to taper asset purchases sooner rather than later. Some analysts described the jobs report as a “goldilocks” scenario.

The data weighed on the USD with the US Dollar Index dropping back towards 90.00 before finding support. GBP was one of the main beneficiaries with GBP/USD briefly trading back above 1.42 before paring some of the gains.

US yields declined after the data with the United States 10-Year yield dropping 5 basis points to its lowest level since 27th May. As the USD weakened, spot gold was a beneficiary with the yellow metal testing $1900 to the upside.

WTI and Brent crude futures were also benefitting from the weaker USD, alongside hopes that oil demand will start to pick up as countries reopen over the summer. WTI was close to trading with a 70 handle for the first time since October 2018.

Major cryptocurrencies were weak following a tweet by Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO posted a meme with the word Bitcoin and an emoji of a broken heart, suggesting that he has given up on the world’s largest cryptocurrency for now. Other cryptocurrencies followed suit with Ethereum dropping around 5% and Dogecoin falling by around 10%.

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