The number of employed in the Eurozone in the fourth quarter of 2020 reached 157.9 million. This represents a loss of 3.1 million jobs compared to the same period in 2019, before the impact of the pandemic, the EU statistics office Eurostat has reported. In the European Union as a whole, the number of employed people in the fourth quarter of 2020 was 206 million, a figure 3.5 million lower than in the same quarter of 2019.
Mark Holman (Vontobel AM) | Since the UK’s decision to exit the European Union in June 2016, we have seen sterling denominated assets trade with what we have referred to as a Brexit premium. The value of that premium is something we have monitored continuously and have sought to capture as much as possible without materially adding to risk profiles. The reason for the update today is because Brexit as an event at least is now behind us, though both parties are now having to deal with the consequences.
The appointment of the day will be in the United States, where Biden will take office as the country’s 40th President. Donald Trump will not attend the simple inauguration ceremony.The health and economic crises are Biden’s main challenges for the current legislature, including the approval of a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. Just yesterday Janet Yellen, who will serve as Treasury Secretary in the Biden Administration, defended that stimulus plan in her speech at the Senate. “We must act big,” she said.
Nick Ottens (Atlantic Sentinel) | 400,000 Americans are dead. Trump added $7 trillion to the debt. He told thousands of lies… Donald Trump’s presidency ends on Wednesday. He leaves behind an America that is more in debt, more isolated in the world, less generous and less safe
Nick Ottens (Atlantic Sentinel) | Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has tendered his government’s resignation to King Willem-Alexander. With only two months to go before elections, and the government remaining in a caretaker capacity to manage the coronavirus crisis in the Netherlands, the resignation is largely symbolic. But smaller parties in Rutte’s coalition felt they had to take responsibility for what an inquiry described as an “unprecedented injustice” in the tax service, which wrongly accused more than 20,000 families of fraud.
Litecoin, Dash, and Binance Coin have also made double-digit gains in the dizzying rally, which comes amidst a string of positive headlines. PornHub made cryptocurrency the default payment option on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve committed to additional stimulus on Wednesday, and Elon Musk whipped up a social media frenzy on Sunday by asking MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor how to buy large amounts of Bitcoin.
2020 has been a historic year in many ways and when it comes to IPO activity, it is no different. This year, the world has seen the highest IPO capital raising activity in a decade, with USD 331 billion raised across 1,591 listings.
Azad Zangana (Schroders) | As promised at the previous Governing Council meeting, the European Central Bank (ECB) has today announced additional stimulus to aid the economic recovery. This follows the new restrictions introduced last month to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) will be expanded by €500 billion to a total of €1.85 trillion. Purchases will be extended to at least the end of March 2022.
Flosbach von Storch | National debt-to-GDP ratios have already reached historic highs. Gross national debt will likely exceed 260 per cent of GDP in Japan by the end of the year, and reach around 140 per cent in the USA and around 100 per cent in the eurozone. Concerns about the high level of debt being unsustainable in the long run are at least theoretically unjustifiable as long as interest rates and government bond yields remain close to zero. This is because zero interest rates allow practically any deficit or mountain of debt to be easily funded.
Peter Isackson | In a New York Times article that appeared just before this week’s interminable presidential cliff-hanger of an election, Lisa Lerer pondered how things might unfold after a Biden victory. She and the rest of the US punditry thought at the time that it might be decisive enough to define the future of the nation. Lerer cites Representative Pramila Jayapal’s speculation that Biden’s triumph could inaugurate an era of spectacular reform: “A White House victory would give Mr. Biden a mandate to push for more sweeping overhauls.”