Data from the USA and China, New Records, Lira

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Yesterday and the start of today were marked by some important macroeconomic stats publication. US retail sales rose 9.8% in March. The impressive result (analysts expected a 6.1% increase) is due to the fact that Americans, having received checks of $1,400 from the Government, rushed to spend them, bars and restaurants included. That is, growth is rather a local anomaly, since no one plans to distribute new checks in the foreseeable future.

Nonetheless, the retail sales data were excellent and the impact was amplified by the jobless claims data. Initial jobless claims fell to 576,000, the best week since the start of the pandemic.

In the morning, data on China's GDP, industrial production and retail sales were published. The first two indicators came out slightly below analysts' expectations, but still the growth figures in relation to the situation a year earlier are impressive: GDP added 18.3%, and industrial production - 14.1%. Well, retail sales soared by 34.2%.

Against such a background, risk assets continue to be in high demand, and the US stock markets renew historical highs every day. Moreover, the start of the earnings season turned out to be extremely successful. Banks report a sharp increase in financial performance (albeit mainly due to write-off of reserves and investment and trading activities). It feeds the markets' optimism.

The Bank of Turkey yesterday quite unexpectedly left the monetary policy parameters unchanged. Against this background, lyra continued its local strengthening. And the dumb question still there is: why was it necessary to dismiss the previous head of the Central Bank, sow panic in the ranks of investors and ruin the lira?

And finally, the fact of the day: Bitcoin is now the 5th largest currency in the world, even larger than the British pound. However, the news is in line with the fact that CoinBase is more capitalized than Nasdaq, on which it is quoted. The world finally went crazy and everything turned upside down.