- Stock markets globally are continuing to advance slowly after an earlier selloff following spikes to new highs. The Japanese Nikkei 225 Index is performing especially strongly, up by 1.78% this session to reach a new all-time high price.
- Risk assets are performing well, with WTI Crude Oil reaching a new 2-month high, and riskier currencies such as the Australian dollar and British pound rising firmly. Safe havens are generally weak and the Japanese yen is currently the weakest major currency.
- The GBP/USD currency pair hit a new 2-month high yesterday, and seems to have a good chance to move higher still today.
- The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has left its interest rate and asset purchase program unchanged, which boosted the NZD.
- President Trump is continuing his legal challenge to provisional ballot counts in several swing states, alleging that a large number of votes have been illegally admitted, especially in Nevada and Pennsylvania. Courts will begin to hear the cases this week and there will be mandatory recounts in Georgia and Wisconsin, and possibly in some other states. There are still tens of thousands of votes in these key states which have not been counted, most notably in Arizona and Nevada. Final results have not been certified from any states, and the winner of the electoral college is not ratified until 14th December.
- Last Friday saw 623,365 confirmed new coronavirus cases diagnosed worldwide – a record high.
- Coronavirus daily global death tolls are rising sharply to a new high total which exceeds the record made last April. Deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean continuing to fall, while rising strongly elsewhere, notable in Europe and in the U.S.A. The U.S.A. accounts for about 17% of the global total, Europe 44%, with Latin America at 18%.
- The European Union is now seeing more new coronavirus cases and deaths than any other area, about double that of the U.S., with a short-term average of over 200,000 new cases daily. The death rate there is double that in the U.S.A with approximately 2,600 deaths per day compared to about 1,300 in the U.S. Deaths are also continuing to rise strongly in the U.K.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases stand at over 51.4 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.47%.
- India has more than 8.6 million confirmed coronavirus cases, more than any other nation except the U.S.A. which has confirmed more than 10.2 million cases.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Albania, Algeria, Austria, Belize, Canada, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lithuania, Mali, Moldova, Morocco, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey, U.S.A., Ukraine, the U.K., and Uruguay.