HYCM (www.HYCM.com), a well-established global forex broker, attended an exclusive financial webinar as a guest of the American University in Dubai, where Giles Coghlan, Group Chief Currency Analyst, presented COVID-19 Outbreak's Impact on The Financial Markets (https://bit.ly/32UCVGo). Over 90 finance and accounting students attended the webinar.

The presentation started with Burcu Kapar, Associate Professor of Finance, who introduced Giles, a professional trader with over 10 years of experience in the trading industry.

Talking about how the pandemic affected the financial markets, Giles said:

“As soon as it became clear that a global pandemic was ahead, global equity markets started falling. The S&P500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, Nikkei, UK FTSE, and the Hang Seng all lost hundreds of points over the course of a few weeks because companies were expected to slow down as COVID spread around the world. However, most of these falls were soon erased and the Nasdaq made astounding record highs as ‘stay-at-home’ stocks boomed. Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google all helped lift US stock markets to surprising new highs, as did the prospect of huge stimulus packages.

Currencies moved in line with normal risk patterns. There was an initial global scramble for the most liquid currency in the world, the USD. This led to the Federal Reserve expanding swap lines to ensure central banks around the world had access to enough US Dollars. This eased the initial frenzy for the USD and it gradually weakened as investor confidence grew. The JPY and the CHF both gained on risk-off flows while the AUD and the NZD initially fell at the start of the crisis. As New Zealand and Australia contained the COVID-19 outbreak, the AUD and the NZD steadily gained value alongside rising global stock markets.

Oil markets quickly fell as investors prepared for months of slowing demand. Airplanes were grounded, travel cancelled, and production halted. US oil futures markets even went negative at one point during the crisis as owning oil became a liability. Investors were literally paying to have people take oil out of their hands to avoid physical delivery in the futures markets.

Gold rose to all-time highs in the middle of the year as record-low interest rates, large levels of quantitative easing, and huge Government stimulus packages, all supported higher gold prices. In the last three recessions prior to COVID-19, gold rose in price. This latest crisis proved to be no exception.”

As one of the leading forex brokers, HYCM is committed to educating those interested in the financial markets. The webinar at the American University of Dubai, a renowned accredited university in Dubai that provides a globally recognized American education, was in line with HYCM's dedication to supporting responsible trading.

Register for the HYCM regular online webinars and workshops (https://bit.ly/32XgS1P)