This week’s market commentary from David Jones, Chief Market Strategist at Capital.com

“This week could be a momentous one for all sorts of financial markets. First of all, last week saw the broader US S&P500 index close at a new all-time high. The recovery this year has been staggeringly impressive – since the December lows, this popular benchmark has risen by 25%. There have been slight drops long the way but so far at least all this has served to do is bring in the buyers afresh. It will be very closely watched this week to see if it can build further on this latest spurt of momentum – or whether investors start to think enough is enough for now, and take some profits off the table.

Another market that has out-performed this year is oil. But, the end of last week saw a sizeable slide by recent standards, with “black gold” dropping back by $4. Apparently fuelling the slide was a tweet by US President Trump, where he said he had called the oil producing consortium, OPEC, and asked them to drop their prices. It will be interesting to see whether traders view this slide as an overreaction or whether after a significant rise this year – just like the S&P500 – it is time to perhaps step aside and let the dust settle.

It is also a major week for economic announcements, with interest rate decisions expected from both the US Federal Reserve and the UK’s Bank of England. No changes are expected – but as ever any comments around the state of their respective economies can usually be relied upon to spark some volatility in markets. And if all of that was not enough, the week finishes with US unemployment numbers – around 180,000 jobs are expected to have been added to the American economy in April.

*This is market commentary information, therefore it shall not be regarded as investment research or investment advice. Also note that past performance is not reliable indicator for the future.”