Nigel William Crawford and Jim Buttery via The Conversation | This pause in the trials doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not safe. Rather, it indicates the testing is progressing as it should, with due consideration of safety. In a sense, this is what phase 2 and 3 clinical trials are designed for — to pick up any potential safety issues and investigate them further.
Just Eat, one of the UK’s leading online food delivery platforms, has added cryptoasset payment options for its France subsidiary. The company has partnered with cryptocurrency payment provider Bitpay to allow its users to pay in bitcoin. The move means Just Eat users will now be able to order food from across 15,000 restaurants in France and pay using bitcoin…
It will take three years for global oil demand to recover from Covid to its new normal assuming we have a vaccine or a cure. According to estimates from BoA Global Research, long term oil demand will peak at 105 million barrel/day by 2030 on electric car proliferation, and then decline to 95 mn bd by 2050. If heavy vehicles also switch to alternative fuel, electric or more likely hydrogen, demand could drop to 76 mnb/d by 2050.
In August 2020, commodities had their best monthly performance since April 2016 and second-best monthly performance in the past decade (based on the Bloomberg Commodity Total Return Index). Each major segment of commodities contributed positively to the strong performance, led by Energy (+11.2%). Natural gas was the best performer in that segment, with a 47.6% gain.
Eva Cairns (Aberdeen Standard Investments) | Growing numbers of countries, cities and companies have pledged to become net zero by 2050 to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. Estimates suggest, collectively, these net-zero pledges represent nearly 25% of world emissions and 50% of global output.
Abe’s resignation is not good news as it comes at a critical economic, political and social time. The so-called Abenomics failed to address old structural problems and inflation has continued to be a headache, while wages have not risen as strongly as expected. Along with Japan, there are other economies such as Argentina, where past mistakes have been repeated. Current week the country successfully closed the restructuring of its debt in dollars with private creditors, but still have to recover its financial equilibrium.
Johannes Müller Head of Macro Research DWS | Until the Covid-19 virus is finally defeated, the recovery looks set to continue at an uneven pace. In our view, pandemic containment will remain an economic drag for the foreseeable future. Over the course of the summer, we have already seen signs of the initial, V-shaped recovery giving way to a much flatter curve of improving global economic activity. The good news is that most developed countries appear better prepared for potential renewed virus surges in the fall than they were in spring.
In Spain, the increase foreseen by Crédito y Caución reaches 30%, due to the sectorial composition of the economy. The credit insurance company forecasts an increase of 26% in corporate insolvencies worldwide, which will largely materialize during the second half of 2020.
Bitcoin miners saw revenues surge 23% in August as increased transaction volumes fed through to prices, and as the price of Bitcoin remained above $11,000. Coin Metrics data analysed by CoinDesk showed Bitcoin miners generated an estimated $368 million in revenue in August, up from $300 million in July.
Citi GPS | The race to find a vaccine for COVID-19 is on! Competition to find an effective defense against the virus has increased and accelerated the speed of development to a record pace. Six candidates have already reached Phase 3 trials.