Facebook Drops 4% On Outage, Hate Speech Issues

Oct 05 21, 09:34 GMT

Facebook’s (#FB) share price dived over 4% lower yesterday as its services including Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Oculus experienced an outage, with the downtime being reported as over six hours causing considerable turmoil for its users. According to Facebook the outage was caused by a configuration issue and the company believes that no user data were affected by it. It should be noted that the social media company faces renewed issues about hateful content after a whistleblower revealed that Facebook did not deal with such content in an adequate manner. Yet the company stated that “to suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true”. We would like to see how the situation plays out for Facebook, yet we note that other mega-cap tech shares like Apple (#AAPL), Amazon (#AMZN), and Alphabet (#GOOG) seem to be on the retreat, practically dragging Nasdaq lower as well.

Facebook’s (#FB) share price plunged yesterday bouncing on the 322.50 (S1) support line. We tend to maintain a bearish outlook for the share’s price as long as it remains below the downward trendline incepted since the 19th of September. It should be noted that the RSI indicator below our 4-hour chart has dropped below the reading of 30, confirming the dominance of the bears, yet at the same time may imply that the share is oversold and a correction higher could come into play. Should the bears actually maintain control over the share’s price, we may see it breaking the 322.50 (S1) support line and aim for the 315.70 (S2) level. Should a correction higher be performed and the bulls take over, we may see the share’s price actually breaking the 329.15 (R1) resistance line, the prementioned downward trendline and aim for the 338.00 (R2).

RBNZ to hike rates

Tomorrow during the Asian session, we get RBNZs’ interest rate decision, and the bank is widely expected to hike rates by 25 basis points. It’s characteristic that NZD OIS imply a probability of 94% for the bank to raise rates from current 0.25% to 0.50%. But given that that scenario was also expected at their last meeting, end of August and failed to materialize, we remain rather cautious. Worries about Auckland’s current lockdown seem to continue, yet there are some signs of a possible easing from Wednesday on. Should the bank not hike rates, which could surprise the markets, we may see NZD weakening considerably, as it did at the bank’s last meeting. Should on the other hand the bank actually hike rates as expected, NZD could gain yet attention may also be placed to the accompanying statement. Should RBNZ Governor Adrian Orr, imply that given the uncertainty of the situation regarding Covid in New Zealand, a measured approach to future rate hikes should be adopted, we may see the Kiwi’s strengthening being capped and that is expected to be our base line scenario. On the other hand, should the statement’s tone allow for a more aggressive approach regarding future rate hikes, we may see the NZD rallying.

NZD/USD dropped yesterday after failing to reach the 0.6985 (R1) resistance line. Given that in its drop the pair broke the upward trendline guiding it since the 30th of September, we switch our bullish outlook in favour of a bias for a sideways movement, for the time being. However RBNZ’s interest rate decision could alter the pair’s movement to either direction. Should the correction lower be transformed to a selling interest, we may see the pair breaking the 0.6935 (S1) support line and aim for the 0.6860 (S2) level. Should buyers take over, we may see the pair aiming if not breaking the 0.6985 (R1) resistance level.

Today’s events and expectations

Today among a number of releases we note the US and Canada’s trade balance for August and the US ISM non manufacturing PMI for September. As for speakers we note ECB President Lagarde in the American session and BoJ Governor Kuroda in tomorrow’s Asian session.

#FB H4 Chart