Stocks choppy, oil higher, gas, gold lower, SEC seeks crypto authority

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Breaking NewsElon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

Elon Musk will join Twitter’s board of directors, CEO Parag Agrawal said.

Crypto prices mostly higher early Tuesday morning

Cryptocurrency prices were trending higher early Tuesday morning.

Bitcoin was trading at $46,672, up 1.11%. Ethereum and Dogecoin were also higher, Coindesk reported, trading at $3,524 (+0.92%) and 15.1 cents (+4.9%), respectively.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported the Securities and Exchange Commission is studying ways to make it more feasible for cryptocurrency trading platforms to register with the agency as exchanges, Chairman Gary Gensler said Monday.

Gasoline prices trending lower Tuesday

The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US slipped on Tuesday to $4,176, according to the latest numbers from AAA.

The price on Monday was $4.189.

The previous record high was $4.33, set on Friday March 11, 2022.

US stocks continues to whipsaw overnight; investors scoop up tech stocks

SymbolPriceChange%ChangeI:DJI$34,921.88+103.61+0.30%SP500$4,582.64+36.78+0.81%I:COMP$14,532.55+271.05+1.90%

US stocks were choppy overnight, whipsawing between negative and positive territory for most of the time.

US stocks climbed Monday as investors scooped up some of the technology stocks that came under pressure to start the year.

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index gained 271.05 points, or 1.9%, to 14532.55, while the S&P 500 added 36.78 points, or 0.8%, to 4582.64. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 103.61 points, or 0.3%, to 34921.88.

The indexes have rallied over the past three weeks after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2018 in a bid to curb inflation. The S&P 500 and the Dow industrials are about 5% below their January highs, while the Nasdaq is off about 10% from November’s record.

Amazon considered creating app for its workers and blocking words like ‘union’: report

SymbolPriceChange%ChangeAMZN$3,366.93+95.73+2.93%

Amazon.com Inc staff included the words “union,” “grievance,” and “living wage” on a preliminary list of terms to block from an internal messaging app it was considering creating to boost worker morale, The Intercept reported on Monday.

The news fueled concern about the retailer’s approach to organized labor, days after employees at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, voted to form Amazon’s first union in the United States.

The Athena Coalition, a labor and activist group that is critical of Amazon, posted on Twitter, “This needs to stop.”

Oil rises as Russian crude export disruptions deepen

Oil was trading higher in early Asian trading on Tuesday, April 5, 2022, as Russian crude export disruptions deepen, which would likely tighten the oil-market balance and place more persistent upward price pressures, Fitch Solutions reported.

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is also raising the risk premium and keeping crude prices high, Fitch added.

The oil market is already very tight as indicated by the futures curve, which is pricing in a lower cost of crude in coming months compared with spot prices, Fitch said.

Gold lower early Tuesday

Gold edged lower in early Asian trading Tuesday as expectations of further Fed rate rises weigh on the precious metal, Oanda said.

Recession risks are also in focus. The inversion of the US yield curve – where two-year yields are higher than 10-year yields – is “now clear for all to see and has previously been a fairly reliable recession indicator,” Oanda said.

That said, “it doesn’t offer any kind of specific timeline and there are doubts about its reliability in an enormous Fed balance sheet world,” Oanda added.

SEC weighs path forward for crypto trading platforms

SymbolPriceChange%ChangeCOIN$191.65+4.69+2.51%

The Securities and Exchange Commission is studying ways to make it more feasible for cryptocurrency trading platforms to register with the agency as exchanges, Chairman Gary Gensler said Monday.

Gensler has been urging crypto-trading platforms such as Coinbase Global Inc. to submit to SEC oversight for months, saying the firms allow investors to buy and sell assets that meet the legal definition of securities. The trading platforms have refused. They dispute the assertion that they list securities and cite a variety of technical reasons why they view SEC regulation as impractical.

“These crypto platforms play roles similar to those of traditional regulated exchange,” Gensler said in a speech for an event hosted by the University of Pennsylvania’s law school. “Thus, investors should be protected in the same way.

Coinbase declined to immediately comment when reached Monday. Though they call themselves exchanges, crypto-trading platforms differ from regulated securities exchanges in a number of ways.

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