Please see below for Brooks McDonald’s latest Daily Investment Bulletin, received by us this morning 25/11/2020:
What has happened
The US market hit another all-time high yesterday as the vaccine backdrop mixed with positive news around the US transition and expectations that Janet Yellen will be appointed Biden’s Treasury Secretary. The bias towards non-tech stocks continued with the equal weight US market outperforming the traditional index yet again.
Vaccine update
As more vaccines are revealed we expect the pace of news flow in this area to increase and yesterday Sinopharm submitted an application to bring its vaccine to the Chinese market. The Sinopharm vaccine has already been approved for emergency use and has been rolled out quite widely already. Official approval would also open the door to exports to the number of ASEAN countries that have bought the vaccine. This could be a meaningful step for countries without access, either due to economic or political factors, to the cheap Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. On the latter vaccine we saw information that the half dose followed by full dose combination which achieved 90% efficacy was only administered to those under 55. This may suggest the population wide efficacy of that strategy is far lower but that isn’t necessarily a problem. Higher cost (financially and logistically) vaccines with high efficacy can be used for those most vulnerable but the cheaper vaccines with equivalent efficacy only in younger cohorts, can be used for herd immunity.
UK Spending Review
Today will see the long-awaited announcement from the UK Chancellor on the state of the UK’s Public finances as well as detailing some short-term next steps. Importantly this is only a one-year review which has been scaled down given the uncertainties of COVID (and indeed Brexit). The tone of the announcement is likely to retain a focus on supporting the economy and jobs short term with the FT reporting that a £4.3bn employment plan will be revealed. That number is however relatively small compared to the numbers in March and this reflects the new context of a far tighter fiscal backdrop coming into 2021, something that will be outlined during the speech.
What does Brooks Macdonald think
The formal budget was deliberately pushed back as the UK economy simply couldn’t handle fiscal tightening when we are in a period of rolling lockdowns. Even next year the government will need to strike a cautious balance between getting public finances back on track and not derailing a delicate recovery which would ultimately generate a need for more fiscal support down the line.
These articles provide concise and well-informed views that cover the whole of the market and are useful to maintain your up to date view of the markets globally.
Please keep reading our blogs regularly to give yourself a holistic and up to date view of the markets.
Keep safe and well,
Paul Green
25/11/2020