· Democrat Raphael Warnock projected to flip Georgia Senate seat in race against Republican Kelly Loeffler
Rev. Raphael Warnock is projected to win the Georgia U.S. Senate special election runoff, flipping a Republican seat and bringing Democrats one step closer to unified control of Congress and the White House, according to NBC News.
The senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church will defeat incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to temporarily fill the seat after former Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson retired early.
Republican David Perdue, whose first Senate term ended Sunday, also faced a runoff contest against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. NBC News has not projected a winner in that race as of Wednesday morning, as Ossoff leads with 98% of the expected vote counted.
· Democrats win one Georgia runoff and lead in second, moving closer to U.S. Senate control
Democrats won one hotly contested U.S. Senate race in Georgia on Wednesday and pulled ahead in a second, edging closer to control of the chamber and the power to advance Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s policy goals when he takes office this month.
Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock beat Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler, TV networks and Edison Research projected. Democrat Jon Ossoff held a narrow lead over Republican David Perdue in the other race, with a final outcome not expected until later on Wednesday.
With 98% reporting, Warnock was ahead of Loeffler by 1.2 percentage points, roughly 50,000 votes, while Ossoff led Perdue by more than 12,000 votes, according to Edison Research.
· Bitcoin soars above $35,000, hitting new high
Bitcoin soared on Wednesday to touch an all-time high, as the cryptocurrency continued trading wildly.
The price of bitcoin rallied to trade above $35,000 as of about 2:11 a.m. EST Wednesday, according to data from Coin Metrics. The price surge came just days after it slumped more than 10% to $29,316. That followed a more than 300% jump in 2020 to levels above $29,000.
On Monday, JPMorgan published a note with a bold long-term price target for bitcoin, claiming the cryptocurrency could soar to as high as $146,000 as it competes with gold as an “alternative” currency. The precious metal also saw sizable gains in 2020, with spot gold rising about 25% for the year.
· Dollar squeezed as Georgia counts crucial Senate votes
The U.S. dollar took a breather from its steady descent but could not entirely escape selling pressure in Asia on Wednesday, as traders looked to the outcome of a Senate election in Georgia to drive the next move in market sentiment.
The dollar had dropped through a major support level against the Japanese yen on Tuesday and it briefly extended lower to a new 10-month low of 102.60 on Wednesday before steadying.
The euro also pulled back from a 32-month peak of $1.2328 made early in the Asia session as counting pointed to a close result in a poll that determines control of the U.S. Senate.
The Australian and New Zealand dollars kept pressure on the greenback and hovered just below multi-year highs, while sterling softened very slightly to $1.3614.
Democrats will control both houses of Congress if they win both Georgia Senate seats up for contest.
The prospect of a Democrat agenda becoming law pushed bond yields up and U.S. stock futures down in anticipation of higher government borrowing, higher taxes and more tech regulation.
However, currency markets have been more equivocal, with the likelihood of higher stimulus spending tempering the hit to sentiment and holding the dollar back from making gains.
Against a basket of currencies the dollar index hit a fresh 2-1/2 year low on Wednesday before firming about 0.1% to 89.575. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yields rose above 1% for the first time since March.
Cryptocurrency bitcoin, sometimes seen as a hedge against inflation, rose more than 4% and hit a record high of $35,879.
Georgia morning due
A clear outcome in Georgia could arrive as soon as Wednesday morning in the United States, although the tightness of the count suggests it may take longer.
The latest results put the Democrats a fraction ahead in one of the two Senate races and the two challengers neck-and-neck in the other.
Michael J. Kelly, PineBridge Investments’ global head of multi assets in New York, though, said that even a sweep might not be enough to shift the greenback from a pronounced downtrend that has carried the dollar index 13% lower since March.
“Rising taxes and regulation will not cure today’s weak dollar,” he said over email.
“The global rotation out of U.S.-based assets into Europe and emerging would continue ... soon we’ll be back to focusing on the vaccine roll outs.”
Soaring currencies in Asia, where the economic recovery has been most impressive, have caught an added boost from China’s rising yuan, which increases China’s purchasing power for commodities and other imports.
After a Tuesday surge, the yuan was steady at 6.4564 per dollar on Wednesday as profit taking and state-owned bank selling cooled excitement about a big jump in its onshore trading band.
The yuan gained 12% on the dollar since last May as China’s economic rebound has led the world’s pandemic recovery.
Elsewhere, a rise in oil prices lifted exporters’ currencies, sending the Norwegian crown to a 21-month high of 8.4350 per dollar and the Canadian dollar to a 32-month peak.
· China steps up COVID curbs near Beijing as infections rise
Chinese authorities on Wednesday imposed travel restrictions and banned gatherings in the capital city of Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, in the latest escalation of measures to stave off another coronavirus wave.
The province, which entered a "wartime mode" on Tuesday, accounted for 20 of the 23 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases reported in mainland China on Jan. 5, more than the total of 19 cases in the province in the three previous days.
Hebei also accounted for 43 of 64 new asymptomatic cases - patients who have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus but not yet showing symptoms of COVID-19.
· South African Covid variant appears to ‘obviate’ antibody drugs, Dr. Scott Gottlieb says
Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned that vaccinating Americans against Covid is more critical than ever, especially as the new South Africa variant appears to inhibit antibody drugs.
“The South Africa variant is very concerning right now because it does appear that it may obviate some of our medical countermeasures, particularly the antibody drugs,” said the former FDA chief in the Trump administration in an interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” on Tuesday evening. “Right now that strain does appear to be prevalent in South America and Brazil, the two parts of the world, right now, that are in their summer, but also experiencing a very dense epidemic, and that’s concerning.
The South African variant is also known as 501.V2, and in mid-December officials reported that 501.V2 had been largely replacing other strains of the coronavirus as early as November. South Africa has already sustained the more than 1.1 million COVID-19 cases and more than 30,000 deaths, the most on the African continent.
· A second coronavirus vaccine developed in India is set to enter phase three clinical trial ‘very, very soon’
· Trump bars U.S. transactions with eight Chinese apps including Alipay
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay mobile payment app, the White House said, escalating tensions with Beijing two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The move, first reported by Reuters, is aimed at curbing the threat to Americans posed by Chinese software applications, which have large user bases and access to sensitive data, a senior administration official told Reuters.
The order argues that the United States must take “aggressive action” against developers of Chinese software applications to protect national security.
· UK lockdown causes biggest drop in new car sales since World War Two
British new car sales fell nearly 30% last year in their biggest annual drop since 1943 as lockdown measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus hit the sector, a trade industry body said on Wednesday.
Demand stood at 1.63 million cars in 2020, preliminary data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed. It was particularly hard hit by a 97% fall in April, the first full month of a national lockdown.
Dealerships gradually reopened in June across the United Kingdom's four nations.
· Hong Kong arrests 53 activists for attempt to "overthrow" govt with unofficial vote
Hong Kong police arrested 53 people in raids on democracy activists on Wednesday, with authorities saying an unofficial vote to choose opposition candidates in city elections was part of a plan to “overthrow” the government.
· China says it will respond to planned Taiwan, U.S. defense talks
China said on Wednesday it would make a “necessary response” to a planned military dialogue between the United States and Chinese-claimed Taiwan, saying it firmly opposed the event.
China has been angered by stepped up support for the democratic island by outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, including new arms sales and visits to Taipei by senior U.S. officials, which have strained already poor Beijing-Washington ties.
· N. Korean Leader Says Economic Plan Failed as Rare Party Congress Begins
North Korea reportedly opened a rare congress of the ruling Workers' Party on Tuesday.
North Korean media outlets reported on Wednesday that the opening ceremony for the eighth party congress took place in Pyongyang the previous day with leader Kim Jong-un's opening address.
Kim said that the five-year economic development strategy period wrapped up last year, but the plan significantly failed to meet its goals in almost every sector.
Noting external and internal challenges that hinder the country's development, Kim stressed the need to produce firm measures to deal with problems and obstacles.
· South Korea delegation heads to Iran to seek release of seized tanker -Yonhap
· Oil hits 11-month high after Saudi Arabia pledges voluntary output cut
Oil prices rose on Wednesday to their highest since February 2020 after Saudi Arabia agreed to reduce output more than expected in a meeting with allied producers, while industry figures showed U.S. crude stockpiles were down last week.
Brent crude rose as much as nearly 1% to $54.09 a barrel, the highest since Feb. 26, 2020. It was at $53.87 a barrel at 0536 GMT after jumping 4.9% on Tuesday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures reached $50.24 a barrel, also the highest since Feb. 26, before slipping to $50. The contract on Tuesday closed up 4.6%.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, agreed on Tuesday to make additional, voluntary oil output cuts of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in February and March, after a meeting with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other major producers that form the group known as OPEC+.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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