It is another big Thursday for the financial markets. Earlier in the day, the Netherlands, one of the richest countries in the EU, released improving results on consumer sentiment and unemployment rate. Business confidence in France also improved.
The major highlight of the day in Europe is, of course, the ECB’s policy meeting today. As expected, the central bank did not make any changes to the interest, deposit, or marginal lending rates. The ECB had previously promised further QE via its asset purchase program in the second quarter, but with the economic situation improving in Europe, right now it does not seem necessary.
As is typical of any Thursday, later today we look forward to initial and continuing jobless claims data from the United States. A slight increase in jobless claims is expected this week.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden is preparing for a summit with 40 other world leaders to commemorate Earth Day and share plans on how to combat climate change. Biden’s administration will be proposing a plan to help the world’s largest economy cut its CO2 pollution in half over the next decade.
The US stock market will continue to trade with a mixed bias due to the expectation of many more earnings reports today. Among these, US airline companies will stand out the most due to how heavily their industry has been affected by the coronavirus lockdowns.
As for the pandemic, today the total number of coronavirus cases worldwide stands at 144.5 million, of which 3.07 million lethalities. The United States is still first with 32.6 million infections, though in recent weeks its daily infection rate has gone down substantially; most of the cases happened in 2020 and January 2021.
India is the second most-affected country in the world and the one currently experiencing the worst Covid-19 outbreak. It has just under 16 million cases, of which 315,000 were confirmed yesterday, officially beating the US’s grim record of 307K infections in one day. At this rate, especially considering how slowly vaccinations are going in India, the country could catch up to the United States.
Brazil and Turkey are the two other countries with the highest daily infection numbers at the moment, followed by France, which has struggled to bring its daily infection rate under 30,000 for weeks now.
