· Dollar holds gains as investors temper Covid-19 vaccine enthusiasm
The dollar held broad gains on Thursday as investors tempered bullish expectations about a Covid-19 vaccine, while the kiwi hovered at an almost 20-month peak as the odds lengthened on New Zealand imposing negative interest rates.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 93.004 after seeing an earlier low of 92.924.
The dollar index was steady through the Asia session and has added about 0.8% this week, mainly thanks to heavy selling in haven currencies such as the Swiss franc and Japanese yen, and weakness in the euro as Covid-19 cases surge in Europe.
Sterling also nursed losses as trade talks between Britain and the European Union seemed set to drag on past yet another deadline, raising the prospect that no trade deal is reached before Brexit transition arrangements end on Dec. 31.
The yen, a popular vehicle for bets against the dollar is now, at 105.28 per dollar, some 2% below an eight-month high it hit against the greenback last week, when Joe Biden’s lead in the U.S. election spurred a wave of dollar selling.
The euro, itself heavily loaded with short bets against the dollar, was kept under $1.18 and also weighed by Germany’s economic advisers cutting 2021 growth projections.
ANZ Bank still thinks New Zealand rates head below zero in August 2021, but said it’s now “become a bit of a toss up” and that it is clear that going negative is no longer urgent.
· U.S. Treasury seeks 'resolution' with ByteDance on security concerns
The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday it wants a resolution of national security concerns it has raised over China-based ByteDance’s acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly, which it then merged into video-sharing app TikTok.
· U.S. President-elect Biden holds phone calls with Australia, Japan, South Korea leaders
· Biden focuses on transition, COVID-19 crisis, as Trump prolongs legal challenges
· Texas first state to top 1 million cases; U.S. sets new record of average daily cases
Texas has become the first state in the U.S. to surpass 1 million reported Covid-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Texas, which is the second-most populated state in the nation, has now reported a total of 1,010,364 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Hopkins. California has the second-highest number of confirmed cases with 991,162, followed by Florida with 852,174.
New York remains the state with the most reported coronavirus fatalities, however, with a death toll of at least 33,707 people, according to Hopkins. Texas comes in second with at least 19,337 deaths.
· Ohio governor says ‘rampant’ Covid spread may prompt closure of bars, restaurants
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio warned that “rampant spread” of the coronavirus across the state could prompt him to reimpose tougher health restrictions on businesses.
· U.S. sets new record of average daily cases
The United States set a new high for seven-day average daily Covid infections of 121,153 on Tuesday, a 33% rise from a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
· U.S. prepares for the worst of the pandemic
The next few months of the coronavirus pandemic will be like nothing the nation has seen yet. Even as drug manufacturers make progress on a vaccine and treatments, epidemiologists, scientists and public health officials are warning that the United States has yet to see the most difficult days of the outbreak. Those are projected to come over the next three to four months.
The U.S. is now reporting an average of more than 120,000 new Covid-19 cases a day — a staggering number that sets a deadly tone heading into the holiday season, medical experts say. The sheer volume of new cases cannot be explained by increased testing alone, because daily new cases are outpacing the rise in testing, health officials acknowledge.
Cases are also rising at a faster pace than usual with a roughly 33% jump in the seven-day average over the past week, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The number of people currently hospitalized across the U.S. also stands at a record 61,964, according to the Covid Tracking Project, which is run by journalists at The Atlantic.
“Unfortunately, the worst days are ahead of us,” Dr. Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said. “We are starting from a worse position, because we didn’t do a good job in the summer to bring it down and then we see right now a rapid rise in cases, so the surge of fall and winter has started. That’s why the worst days are ahead of us.”
· Moderna expects to know by the end of the month whether its Covid-19 vaccine works
Moderna has finished accumulating data for a first analysis of its Covid-19 vaccine and expects to have an announcement on the vaccine's efficacy by the end of the month, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
Pfizer announced Monday that its coronavirus vaccine is more than 90% effective.
· Most Wall Street workers to get lower 2020 bonuses: study
Year-end bonuses for most Wall Street workers are expected to decline this year compared with 2019 due to the impact of the COVID-19 impact on the U.S. economy, compensation firm Johnson Associates Inc said on Thursday.
· UK tries to reassure business leaders over Brexit with new task force
Britain will attempt to reassure nervous business leaders that it appreciates the need for clarity on rules outside of the European Union by setting up a task force to discuss challenges 50 days before the transition period ends.
The United Kingdom left the EU in January, but the sides are trying to clinch a deal that would govern nearly 1 trillion dollars in annual trade before the status quo transitional arrangements end on Dec. 31.
· UK economy grew 15.5% in the third quarter, as it starts to rebound from record plunge
The U.K. economy grew by 15.5% in the third quarter, according to preliminary figures published Thursday, as it begins to rebound from a sharp downturn.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 15.8% quarter-on-quarter expansion in GDP (gross domestic product) in the three months to September. It comes after an unprecedented 19.8% plunge in the previous quarter as nationwide lockdown measures crippled activity.
· UK reports highest daily deaths since May, bringing death toll to over 50,000
The United Kingdom reported 595 new deaths from Covid-19, the highest daily death toll since May, bringing the total number of people who died in the country to 50,365, the Associated Press reported, citing government data.
· German economic advisers cut growth outlook for 2021
The German government’s council of economic advisers expects Europe’s largest economy to shrink less than initially feared this year thanks to a strong summer, but a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is clouding the growth outlook for next year.
The council now sees the economy shrinking by 5.1% this year which translates into a calendar-adjusted and internationally comparable drop of 5.5%. In June, it had forecast -6.5% (or -6.9% in calendar-adjusted terms).
This means that the economic devastation caused by the pandemic could be smaller than the shock suffered during the global financial crisis in 2009, when the German economy shrank by 5.6%.
For 2021, the council lowered its GDP growth forecast to 3.7% from its previous estimate of 4.9%. The advisers expect economic output to shrink slightly in the fourth quarter and barely grow in the first quarter as a second wave of infections has led to renewed lockdown measures.
The council lauded the various rescue and stimulus measures put in place by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and European Union leaders as mostly right and effective.
It cautioned, however, that the EU should not make its debt-financed 750 billion euro ($881 billion)recovery funds a permanent tool unless member states transferred fiscal sovereignty to Brussels.
· India's Serum says produced 40 million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine
Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine producer, said on Thursday it has made 40 million doses of AstraZeneca’s potential COVID-19 vaccine, and would soon begin making Novavax’s rival shot, as they both seek regulatory approval.
· BOJ's monetary policy can play bigger role in COVID-19 world, says central bank policymaker
The Bank of Japan’s monetary policy can play a bigger role in helping to alleviate the pain caused by structural changes to the economy brought about by COVID-19, its board member Seiji Adachi said on Thursday.
Government and central bank relief measures likely succeeded in addressing immediate economic shock from the coronavirus pandemic with Japan’s jobless rate, at 3%, much lower than around 7-8% for European and U.S. countries, Adachi said.
But jobs losses are increasing for temporary workers in service industries, while corporate bankruptcies may rise if the economy takes longer to emerge from the pandemic’s hit, he said.
· Japan PM Suga speaks with Biden, confirms importance of Japan-U.S. ties
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Thursday he spoke with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden by telephone and confirmed the importance of bilateral ties, as well as a “free and open Indo-Pacific” region.
· South Korea's Moon, Biden reaffirm commitment to alliance and peaceful peninsula
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President-elect Joe Biden reaffirmed their commitment to the two countries’ alliance and a peaceful Korean peninsula during their phone call on Thursday, Moon said on Twitter.
In their first conversation since Biden’s election victory, Moon also said he will work closely with the incoming U.S. administration to tackle global challenges including the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.
· North Korea may use missile tests as a way of ‘forcing’ Biden to pay attention
· Oil gains as possible supply curbs could offset weak demand
Oil prices edged higher on Thursday, taking the week’s gains so far to more than 10% on growing hopes that the world’s major producers will hold off on a planned supply increase as soaring cases of COVID-19 dent fuel demand.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures climbed 17 cents, or 0.4%, to $41.62 a barrel at 0732 GMT, while Brent crude LCOc1 futures rose 7 cents, or almost 0.2%, to $43.87 a barrel.
Algeria’s energy minister said on Wednesday that OPEC+ - grouping the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other suppliers including Russia - could extend current production cuts of 7.7 million barrels per day (bpd) into 2021, or deepen them further if needed.
· IEA says Covid vaccine ‘unlikely to ride to the rescue’ of world oil market for some time
The International Energy Agency (IEA) on Thursday cut its 2020 global oil demand forecast and said it does not expect the prospect of a coronavirus vaccine to significantly boost demand “until well into next year.”
In its latest closely-watched monthly report, the IEA said it now expects world oil demand to contract by 8.8 million barrels per day this year. That reflects a downward revision of 0.4 million barrels from last month’s assessment.
The Paris-based energy agency trimmed its near-term outlook on weak historical data and a resurgence of Covid-19 cases in Europe and the U.S.
For 2021, the IEA said world oil demand growth will rise by 5.8 million barrels per day, representing an upward revision of 0.3 million barrels from last month.
“However, it is far too early to know how and when vaccines will allow normal life to resume. For now, our forecasts do not anticipate a significant impact in the first half of 2021,” the IEA said.
Reference: CNBC, Reuters, CNN, Hellenicshippingnews
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