Archives of “December 2020” month

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UK December Nationwide house prices +0.8% vs +0.4% m/m expected

  
  Analysis

Latest data released by UK Nationwide Building Society – 30 December 2020

  • Prior +0.9%
  • House prices +7.3% vs +6.4% y/y expected
  • Prior +6.5%
Annual house price growth continues to accelerate into the year-end, with the UK housing market showing little signs of slowing down. The stamp duty holiday continues to fuel activity in the housing sector and this should continue through to Q1 2021.

UK approves AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccine

  
Analysis, COVID-19

The UK confirms that regulators have approved the use of the AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccine

The UK health department has announced that the government has accepted the recommendation by the MHRA to authorise the AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccine for use across the UK.

This was very much expected since last week and will just add to some added vaccine optimism as we look towards the new year. That said, the rollout will once again be the key factor under scrutiny once the market gets over the initial hype train.

The full press release can be found here.

Tokyo governor warns of possible ‘explosion’ in coronavirus cases ahead of New Year’s holiday

  
Analysis, COVID-19

Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike, calls to “emphasise life over fun”

She warns that the virus situation in the Japanese capital is quite severe and could face an ‘explosion’ of cases ahead of the New Year’s holiday starting tomorrow.
The virus situation in Japan remains rather tense as it isn’t showing much signs of abating while slowly continuing to gather pace in terms of worsening:
Japan
There are now more than ~37,000 active cases across the country with roughly 1% reported to be in critical condition.
As for the New Year’s holiday, it is a good time to be reminded that Japanese markets will be closed starting from tomorrow through to next week so that will impact liquidity conditions even more than what we are seeing already in the past few days.
In the bigger picture, the virus situation in Japan is worth keeping an eye out for in case it starts to impact the country’s preparation to host the Olympics next year.

Germany reports deadliest day of the pandemic, with over 1,000 deaths recorded

  
Analysis, COVID-19

Germany reports 1,129 deaths in the latest update today

Germany
That marks the deadliest day of the pandemic for Germany, with another 22,459 new coronavirus cases reported in today’s update. The case count has been lower in the previous days, owing to the holiday period but is seen picking back up again.
Meanwhile, the total death count has now risen to 32,107 persons with there being over ~352,500 active cases across the country.
According to local media, the contagious UK virus strain variant (B1.1.7) has been circulating among the German population since November already.
That in part may explain the virulent surge in infections amid lockdown measures being implemented since then to try and curb the virus spread.
In terms of healthcare capacity, there are 5,649 (+52) virus patients requiring intensive care as of yesterday with 4,728 (18%) intensive care units still available.
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