As usual for this week, the main news of the day were centered around the plans to rescue the US economy, the earnings season and, traditionally for Thursday, jobless claims in the US.
As Democrats and Republicans have less time, the process of preparing a new stimulus package has intensified markedly. Republicans seem to have decided on their position: legislators have agreed with the White House on the amount of aid (1 trillion) and its main components. But so far there is no any legislative act, just as there is no agreement with the democrats.
The news of today was a message from China about the closure of the US Consulate in Chengdu.
In addition, yesterday there was another portion of negativity from the Brexit negotiations: Michel Barnier said that the current negotiating position of the UK makes a new trade agreement unlikely. This is about selling the pound against the dollar today, even though the latter is weak.
On the fronts of the pandemic, meanwhile, things are still extremely bad. The number of new cases in the world has confidently passed the 15 million mark, and a number of countries have not even reached their peak in the number of cases. All this will inevitably lead, among other things, to economic consequences for the third quarter. So, we should expect the next downward revisions of the forecasts for the growth rates of the world economy.
The situation in the economy is already quite difficult without it. The US labor market is giving clear signals that there is no sign of a quick recovery. Yesterday's data on initial jobless claims showed an increase in the number of unemployed (over 1.4 million new applications). In fairness, it should be noted that the number of people receiving benefits on a permanent basis has decreased (to 16.2 million).
Meanwhile, the earnings season in the US continues and yesterday it gave more cause for concern than for optimism. Southwest and American Airlines have traditionally reported 80% + drop in revenues and losses of $ 1 billion and $ 2 billion for this sector, respectively. Twitter reported a 23% drop in ad revenue and reported a billion-dollar loss. And even AT&T showed weak data: revenues fell by $ 2 billion.