Today the economic calendar is rather sparse, in large part due to US markets and businesses closing down for Thanksgiving. The most important publications were the consumer confidence indices from Germany and France, both of which were worse than expected.
As for the coronavirus pandemic, there have been over 60 million cases worldwide. The United States surpassed the 13 million milestone and confirmed over 180,000 new cases yesterday. The number of daily infections is above 40,000 in Brazil and India as well.
In Europe, France and Spain are seeing much lower daily increases as a result of entering lockdowns early. Germany is still struggling to contain the numbers and announced that it will extend the lockdown until December 20. The number of new Covid-19 cases in Italy also remains above 20,000 per day, so a longer lockdown will likely be necessary there too.
The United Kingdom is seeing numbers somewhere between what France and Germany are experiencing, but is getting ready to ease out of a lockdown in December, as is France.
Meanwhile, there has been some noise around the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. Its effectiveness may be lower than stated earlier due to conflicting data about its performance during the trials. This still leaves the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as options, however, so even if the Oxford vaccine is not viable, investors can stay optimistic.
We don’t expect any activity in US stock markets today due to the Thanksgiving holiday. However, cryptocurrencies remain in focus, after Bitcoin and Ripple both took huge losses today after their previous rallies.
In other news, crude oil is slightly lower today but is still relatively high compared to most of 2020. The Brent crude today reached $48.09, while the WTI brand is trading near $45.22. The pressure from the coronavirus pandemic is not going anywhere and we expect that oil will have trouble going above $50 in the near future.
