India’s HSBC Services PMI fell below expectations in January, registering 58.5 compared to an anticipated 59.4. This indicates a slowing in growth within the country’s services sector.<\/p>\n
In the US, the ADP Employment Change report is projected to show 48,000 new jobs created in January, an increase from the 41,000 recorded in December. This data is set for release by the Automatic Data Processing Research Institute.<\/p>\n
The recovery in gold and silver prices continues, although there is a decline in equities, especially with tech stocks being avoided. This retreat contributed to a 1.7% drop in the Nasdaq and a 1.1% dip in the S&P 500.<\/p>\n
Solana (SOL) has seen a decrease, trading below $100 after a 6% fall as the wider cryptocurrency market showed weakness. Despite a record of 150 million daily transactions, both institutional and retail demand for Solana is waning.<\/p>\n
The article and its findings represent the perspectives of their respective authors, not necessarily aligning with FXStreet’s views. The piece is not intended as investment advice, and while errors and omissions are excepted, the author bears no responsibility for the data presented.<\/p>\n
We recall how the U.S. labor market was showing signs of a significant slowdown in January 2025, with expectations for only 48,000 new private sector jobs. In contrast, the most recent ADP report for January 2026 showed a healthier gain of 157,000 jobs, beating expectations and signaling a more resilient economy. This suggests traders should be cautious with dovish interest rate bets, as the Federal Reserve may have less reason to cut rates soon.<\/p>\n
Looking back to this time last year, a sell-off in technology stocks soured market sentiment, dragging down major indexes. While the Nasdaq 100 has recovered over 20% since then, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) has crept back up to 18, reflecting renewed investor anxiety. Given this elevated volatility, we see an opportunity in selling covered calls against existing tech positions to generate income while providing a small hedge against a downturn.<\/p>\n
In early 2025, gold and silver acted as classic safe havens during the equity market dip. Today, with gold trading around $2,150 an ounce, the metal is caught between a stronger economy capping its upside and persistent inflation providing support. This environment is ideal for range-bound strategies, such as selling an iron condor on gold futures to collect premium from its lack of a strong directional trend.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s economy continues to show impressive momentum, a trend we also saw last year even when the services PMI for January 2025 missed expectations at 58.5. The most recent HSBC India Services PMI just registered an even stronger 61.2, indicating that business activity is accelerating. This ongoing strength makes bullish positions, like buying call options on broad Indian market ETFs, an attractive way to participate in the growth story.<\/p>\n
We remember when Solana was trading below $100 in early 2025, with institutional demand falling despite high on-chain activity. While its price has now rebounded to around $140, the implied volatility for SOL derivatives remains extremely high, reflecting persistent uncertainty about the network. This makes selling options premium an interesting play, as a short strangle could profit from time decay if the token’s price consolidates in the near term.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" India’s services growth slowed, U.S. job growth expected, markets dip, and Solana slips below $100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":16981,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}