Pre-market stocks: vaccine advances outweigh bad economic news

The declines, which in October were isolated in the service sector, are now also affecting industrial production.

“The euro area economy plunged back into a severe decline in November amid renewed efforts to stem the rising tide of Covid-19 infections,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at IHS Markit. “The data adds to the likelihood that the eurozone will see GDP contract again in the fourth quarter.”

While November’s contractions are not as severe as those seen this spring – in part because economic output had not fully recovered from the last plunge – they could still prove damaging.

JPMorgan chief economist Bruce Kasman said these changes will inevitably affect global growth, slowing global recovery.

“With the United States and Europe set to contract now and with the pandemic worsening, the rest of the world is at risk of flexing,” Kasman told customers on Friday.

So why are risky assets like stocks increasing? Looking at Europe, Florian Hense of Berenberg Bank offers three explanations. The setbacks have been widely taken into account, he said, and while the near-term outlook in the region is not good, it has not worsened (the same cannot be said of the United States ). Meanwhile, the medium-term outlook has only become more positive, supported by “calmer US foreign and trade policy. [and] vaccine progress. “

He also noted that, according to the IHS Markit survey, business expectations for the next 12 months have recovered most of the crisis seen in October and are at their second highest level since February.

Investors have been looking to 2021 for some time. For the moment, the alarm concerning this winter does not change the situation.

Travel to United States Rises Despite Covid Warnings

The Transportation Security Administration said it examined more than a million people. Add Friday and Saturday, and more than 3 million people took a flight last weekend.

This is 57% less than the projected volume over the same period last year. But a TSA spokesperson said it was still the highest level of travel seen since March.

The airline industry does not encourage or discourage vacation travel, the industry trade group chief said Thursday.

The pandemic sparks new trials of ‘utopian’ ideas

Christine Jardine, a Scottish politician who represents Edinburgh in the UK parliament, was not a fan of the Universal Basic Income before the pandemic struck.

“It was seen in some quarters as some sort of socialist idea,” said Jardine, a member of the centrist Liberal Democrat party.

But soon after the government shut down schools, stores, restaurants and pubs in March with little warning, she began to reconsider her position. And she’s not alone, I bring back from London. As the economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus continues, support in Europe grows for progressive policies once seen as pipe dreams of the political left.

In Germany, millions have applied to participate in a universal basic income study that will provide participants with € 1,200 ($ 1,423) per month, while in the UK, more than 100 lawmakers – including Jardine – are pushing the government to launch similar lawsuits.

That’s not all: Austria, meanwhile, has launched a one-of-a-kind pilot program that will ensure paid jobs for residents struggling with prolonged unemployment in Marienthal, a long-suffering former industrial town at around 64 km south-west of Vienne.

Whether the increase in popularity and search will result in a wave of action is an open question. But some, like Jardine, see reasons for optimism. A study by the University of Oxford in March found that 71% of Europeans are now in favor of introducing a universal basic income.

“For an idea that has often been dismissed as extremely unrealistic and utopian, he is a remarkable figure,” wrote researchers Timothy Garton Ash and Antonia Zimmermann.

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The latest PMI reading for the United States, a key snapshot of the health of the manufacturing and service sectors, is released at 9:45 a.m. ET.