Data out yesterday had confirmed China’s economy was one of the few in the world to grow over 2020 and actually picked up speed as the year closed. — Reuters pic
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan firmed 0.2 per cent, to be a whisker from record highs. Japan’s Nikkei bounced 1 per cent, recovering all the losses suffered yesterday when caution had dominated markets. “The projected EPS growth in Europe now stands at the lows of the crisis which seems too conservative, and could likely lead to positive surprises over the reporting season,” they wrote in a note.
Janet Yellen, Biden’s nominee to run the Treasury Department, will tell the Senate Finance Committee today that the government must “act big” with the coronavirus relief plan. “That would be sufficient to close any output gap and underpin a gradual recovery in inflation as demand firms,” they wrote. “But it will be a difficult winter, and investors will need renewed confidence in the inflation trade before established earlier trends reassert themselves.”