Four top things to watch for in the financial markets in April 2024

Although it seems that mere days of 2024 have passed, we are already finished the first quarter of the year.

With Q2 and April having started, we thought we’d break down the five biggest things likely to happen in the markets this month for you to keep an eye on:

1. Bitcoin’s halving
2. Two exciting IPOs: Bharti Hexacom and Rubrik
3. Earnings season
4. FOMC meeting and US interest rates

This month will see Bitcoin’s next halving. The world’s oldest cryptocurrency will officially have its fourth-ever halving soon, when it will slash its number of Bitcoins issued to miners from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC instead.

While there is no set date for the event, it’s believed that it will happen between 15 April and 20 April.

The reason there isn’t a specific date is because the halving is scheduled to take place at a specific block height on the BlockChain, rather than a date. So, the halving will take place whenever Bitcoin reaches a block height of 840,000.

After several dry years, the IPO market has certainly heated up in 2024 so far, with several high-profile names like Reddit and Trump Media having already debuted.

This week sees two more additions to 2024’s IPO stable: Bharti Hexacom and Rubrik.

Bharti Hexacom is the long-anticipated merger between Indian telecoms giants Bharti Airtel and Hexacom India. The IPO is expected to begin on 3rd April, with Bharti Hexacom to likely officially debut on the stock exchange on 5th April this Friday.

The second IPO likely to come this week is Rubrik Inc, a California-based tech startup specialising in the cloud systems and data security space.

The company is known to be supported by Microsoft, which is sure to gain it some attention at its launch. Add to that the fact that we haven’t seen many Silicon Valley IPOs in a while, and there should be significant interest for this IPO.

The first quarter’s earnings for FY2025 are set to start in April 2024.

This will be the first earnings season since the United States stuck their ‘soft landing’ for 2023, and may also coincide with the first round of interest rate cuts. Thus, a lot of investors will be watching this with great interest.

Unofficially, earnings season will start as per usual with many of the bigger banks announcing their financial results, including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup on April 12th, and Goldman Sachs on April 15th.

On April 30th and May 1st, the United States’ Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will have its monthly meeting to decide whether or not to change interest rates.

While most analysts are forecasting that June will the likeliest time we’ll see rate cuts start to happen, beginning with the Fed, this is by no means guaranteed. In fact, it could go either way on May 1st, with a US rate cut or with no changes to interest rates. This will obviously have huge ripple effects for all markets, so it’s well worth keeping an eye on.

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