Facebook parent company Meta was fined 265 million euros by Ireland’s data privacy regulators after it was found that breaches of trust in personal data collection were instigated by Facebook between May 2018 and September 2019. Another subsidiary of Meta, WhatsApp, has also recently faced challenges, as there is a seller online claiming to hold a substantial amount of data scraped from its users. Estimated figures are reported to be 487 million plus personal user data from 84 different countries. Cybernews reported that samples from the hacker showed that there was no evidence of data leaks but that they were obtained by scraping. Protect yourself from spammers and scammers by reporting any suspicious number that sends any form of link or malicious file.

EQUITY

The Hang Seng Index is up almost 7% after Beijing announced a stimulus package in the form of reduced reserve requirements and offering equity funding for distressed property sectors. The S&P 500 is down 1.07% due to weakness in the oil and gas and technology sectors. Protests at Foxconn, a major Apple manufacturing partner, put worries into iPhone production.

OIL

Looking at price history, oil has broken below 2-month support once again in a continuous downtrend. If the OPEC+ meeting on December 4 does not take aggressive action, the price is expected to continue its trend. Rumours of an OPEC+ production cut have already been circulating due to Saudi Arabia's intense assertiveness in controlling the oil price to a certain level.

CURRENCY

The USD currency index is currently consolidating at a support level and weakening in the short term. It's an opportunity for other currencies to strengthen against it as EURUSD consolidates in an uptrend. The market may be waiting for the Fed’s Jerome Powell speech to determine its next action. The Japanese yen seems stagnant as it follows the same pattern as the index has.

GOLD

There has not been much volatility in the market for the past few days as the market eyes the Fed’s policy cues. A bankruptcy spree in the crypto market with a few exchanges already falling due to the domino effect of the FTX collapse could bring confidence in the crypto market down and have investors swapping their positions into gold. Weakening oil prices may also affect speculators' positions in the market.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

A second stimulus budget is expected to be approved by the Japanese parliament in an effort to boost the nation's economy. The budget will increase the country's debt because it is financed in large part by new bond issuance. As a result, Japan deviates from the global trend of ending fiscal stimulus during a crisis. The need for increased defence spending must also be balanced with fiscal responsibility, according to an advisory panel. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has given the finance and defence ministers instructions to collaborate in order to raise the proportion of GDP that is spent on defence.