Market Overview
Key Points:
• Worldwide coronavirus cases surpass 100.2 million with over 2,147,000 official deaths.
• The first NZ community spread coronavirus case in over 2 months has been picked up in a quarantine facility- the highly infectious South African strain, the women twice had negative results before being released from quarantine on the 13th January.
• US Equity markets continue to register record levels.
• US Senate formally voted in the ne US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen- the first woman to ever hold the job.
• Moderna says expect the first series of vaccines to last around a year before a 3rd booster shot is required.
• Biden says he will use US taxpayers’ funds to rebuild America
• Ex-president Trump’s impeachment trial will begin on the 8th February.
• The AstraZeneca rollout of the coronavirus vaccine in Europe has been a disaster according to analysts as they won’t be able to provide the number of doses originally expected with a drop of around 60% over the first 3 months of 2021 stemming from production issues.
Major Announcements last week:
- Chinese yearly GDP prints at 6.5% after 6.2% expected
- Canadian Central Bank leave rate unchanged at 0.25% offering optimism
- The Bank of Japan left policy and rates unchanged
- The European Central Bank delivered a standard monetary statement saying the economy outlook looks less pronounced
- Australian Unemployment Rate drops to 6.6% from 6.8%