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Contents Click on the links below to get to the stuff you really really want. USA – Growing signs that US-China phase one deal could proceed; Rushing vaccines through questioned by Fauci; Consumer confidence slumps; Stocks nudge up (#USA) UK – House builders and oil stocks down; Pharma up (#UK) Continental Europe – German business confidence up, but stock rises stymied by US data (#Europe) Elsewhere – Chinese and Australian stocks down; Taiwanese up (#Elsewhere) WTF – Web mistress day (#WTF) Links (#Useful) Numbers (#Numbers) Ts & Cs (#Ts+Cs)
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USA
It’s funny how being behind in the polls in the run-up to an election can focus the mind. Secretary of State, Robert Lighthizer, was on the phone to his Chinese counterparts saying “we love you long time” and other such platitudes before making sure that the media were aware of the new love-in. For their part, the Chinese were being their usual watchful selves and carefully picking words to convey that the phase 1 trade deal was still on.
While there was also some mild euphoria over vaccine development, the rushing through of insufficiently tested vaccine candidates was called into question by Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He has come under fire from the administration for, frankly, doing his job well. He has lives to protect while the White House has an election to win.
Meanwhile, the latest round of macro-economic data put a stop to stock price rises. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index dropped fairly sharply to a new low since the pandemic began. House sales data provided a mild boost as low mortgage rates were shown to have fuelled construction and sales.
With these factors pulling sentiment in different direction, the positives just about outweighed the negatives to leave the S&P 500 0.4% higher on the day. The familiar pattern of tech stocks leading rises was back though.
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UK
House-builders were very much the losers in the UK with the likes of Taylor Wimpey and Barratt adding losing than 3.1% of value to their respective stock prices. They’ve been bounding up over recent days, so investors seemed to be selling them and securing profits.
Pharmaceutical companies were on the up though after AstraZeneca said that phase one trials of cloned antibodies were underway. If you see someone walking down the street with loads of corona-like things sticking out of their body, then you know that they’re taking part in the trial.
Oil stocks were following oil prices back down yesterday, and that was a major drag on the FTSE 100 which closed 1.1% lower on the day. The FTSE 250 only dropped by 0.6%.
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Continental Europe
Aside from all the other stuff going on listed above, German stocks had got off to a decent start as the latest survey results showed German companies becoming slightly more optimistic about the economic recovery. The US (lack of) confidence data soon scuppered that though, leaving the Euro Stoxx 50 and German DAX 0.6% and 0.1% lower on the day.
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Elsewhere
It’s a mixed picture across the Asia Pacific region this morning. Chinese and Australian stocks are down as investors worry over the speed at which US and other stock indices have recovered. But with tech stocks on the rise in the US, it was no surprise to see the tech-heavy Taiwanese index 1.1% higher this morning.
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WTF (What’s The Fact?)
Web mistress day
Yes that really is a thing. But, if you were in charge of some webby type thing, would you really want to be called a “web mistress?” It does rather sound like the sort of service that creaky old members of the House of Lords might log onto in the hope of reliving days of yore when the imperial system ruled and you could sit on the sofa comfortable in the knowledge that the male presenter you were watching on TV was almost certainly a pervert.
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Links
Investopedia (www.investopedia.com/dictionary/) – Loads of free explanations of financial terms including some helpful videos. Not 100% accurate, but a good starting point Guffipedia (ig.ft.com/sites/guffipedia/) – Lucy Kellaway of the FT has collected some painful examples of corporate people disappearing up their own analogies Guardian (www.theguardian.com) – Free to access website with a couple of decent business columnists (e.g. Nils Pratley and Larry Elliott) Times of India (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) – Why use five words when 37 will do? Daily Mail (www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-war-on-stupid-people/485618) – Click it. I dare you.
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———————————————————— IMPORTANT This is my opinion. Yes I read a lot and share what I’ve read with you, but this content remains my opinion. It’s NOT advice. If you take my advice – don’t take my advice. Any decisions you make about investments, your hairstyle or whether or not to eat marzipan are entirely at your own behest. If you are too stupid to recognise the devil’s ear wax when you see it, then you’re on your own.
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