Vaccine news lift markets

Dec 11, 2020 | Insights

S&P 500 futures hit a record high today after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it saw no new issues about the safety of the BioNtech/Pfizer vaccine, while Johnson & Johnson announced it could obtain trial results for its vaccine sooner than expected.

To add to investors’ morale, Joe Biden also claimed that his administration would vaccinate 100 million Americans during his first 100 days in office.

Financial markets continue to operate within tight limits, expecting very large maturities in the second half of the week. Support plans in the United States and Europe, support from the ECB, Brexit, major IPOs: many events will liven up a somewhat sluggish but still optimistic stock market, as demonstrated by the new highs hit on Wall Street.

A lot of things could happen from this Wednesday, December 9, 2020. Tonight, Boris Johnson is having dinner in Brussels with Ursula Van Der Leyen, which will probably be decisive for the conditions of the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

In the United States, the Trump administration proposed a $916 billion stimulus package on Tuesday, slightly more generous than the project that parliamentarians from both sides had been working on. But some elements of the package still offend the Democrats, notably the slashing of unemployment insurance. The positions converge despite everything.

The torpor of the end of the year is taking over stock markets, which did not prevent American indices yesterday from picking up a few points to sign new peaks. The thirst of investors for anything that could be an opportunity is insatiable. One need only look at the craze caused by the IPOs of DoorDashAirbnb, and even Roblox and Wish to be convinced of this.

The importance of the second half of this week on the macroeconomic level should not be overlooked, as the European Council must ratify the budgetary part of the support program by Friday, coping with the hostility of Hungary and Poland, while Christine Lagarde’s ECB must, as of Thursday, reinforce its arsenal, as it had pledged to do.

In the United States, wholesale inventories and the October JOLTS survey and the weekly oil inventories are scheduled. Earlier today, China reported a 0.5% contraction in its consumer prices, while economists were expecting stagnation.

Insights

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