In the words of the Von Trapp children in the Sound of Music, “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.”

Not only have global equity markets started the year in an exuberant mood, but the FTSE-100 has literally leapt out of the starter gates this week (as we write, the FTSE-100 is up just over 3% today, taking its gain so far this week to 5.50%).

Given the lack of any significant economic data releases so far this week, global equity markets have been fairly muted and remain hostage to the tug of war between vaccine optimism and further stimulus versus the growing number of coronavirus cases that is still being fought.

Although November ended on a downer as the FTSE-100 fell just over 100 points (nearly 1.6%) on Monday (30 November 2020), overall November delivered some fantastic equity market rallies: the FTSE-100 rose 12.35%, while in the US the Dow Jones climbed 11.84% and Japan’s Topix ended the month 11.12% higher.

The equity market theme so far this week has been the same as the last few weeks.

With the US Presidential election effectively settled, coronavirus is again the main driver of global equity markets.

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It has been a brutal week so far for global equity markets as the tug-of-war contest has seen the winning marker move decisively away from the […]

Unfortunately there is nothing new to write home about so far this week, as the key theme impacting global equity markets is a familiar one:  coronavirus […]