- FOMC minutes released yesterday showed that monetary policy remains very dovish, but the language used indicated greater pessimism over the scale of the economic challenge the U.S. faces in coping with the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Chair of the Federal Reserve has stated there will be no bond taper for some time.
- Stock markets everywhere dropped quite sharply, especially in the U.S. The S&P 500 Index saw its biggest one day fall since October.
- Wall Street was rocked over the past two days by retail traders coordinating buying campaigns in online forums over stocks in which institutional investors held large short positions. Retail traders briefly scored a big win by forcing institutions into a painful short squeeze and capitulation. Several brokers catering to retail suspended trading in the shares in question, such as GameStop (GME:NYSE), and the Reddit forum wallstreetbets was made private, hampering further coordinated retail action.
- In the Forex market, the U.S. dollar remains strong, while “risk” currencies looks weak. However, the British pound briefly traded at a new 2.5-year high yesterday.
- There will be a release of U.S. advance GDP data later today.
- AstraZeneca and the European Union have agreed to work together to find a solution to the current shortfall of about 50 million coronavirus vaccine doses expected by the E.U. following an earlier confrontation.
- Concerns over new coronavirus mutations remain strong, as several more variants seem to have developed which are more infectious and perhaps lethal too, and it is not known whether some of them may have resistance to the first generation of vaccines which are currently being rolled out. There is particular concern over the South African variant, although Moderna announced Monday that its vaccine should be effective against it. These fears are triggering a move towards further travel and quarantine restrictions in several nations.
- Global coronavirus deaths have increased dramatically since early October to reach a level 108% higher than the peak last April.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 101.4 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.15%.
- The fastest progression in terms of immunizing a population against the coronavirus has been in Israel, which has already administered a first shot of the Pfizer vaccine to 31% of its entire population (including about 75% of the over-60s) and a second dose to 16%. The U.A.E. ranks second, having now given 28 vaccines per 100 of its population. For most of the world, a vaccine remains distant: only 11 countries have vaccinated more than 3% of their population so far. Progress remains slow in the hard-hit European Union.
- Last week saw daily coronavirus deaths hit a new global peak, but total new cases are down from the preceding week.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Albania, Bahrain, Barbados, Cameroon, Chile, Cuba, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Monaco, Peru, Sri Lanka, and the U.A.E.