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Our briefing for Monday, August 30, 2021:
Aug 30, 2021 4:03:19 PM
- The United States will push forward with plans to administer booster shots at the eight-month mark, according to the nation’s top infectious disease expert. Dr. Anthony Fauci says his administration is focused on plans to deliver the shots in a quick and efficient way. The boosters will be first be given the week of Sept. 20 and will require approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Although some countries such as Israel are offering boosters after only five months, Fauci says the U.S. will stick with its plan for eight months, and will continue to review emerging data.
- In Canada, the province of Alberta accounts for one third of all active Covid-19 cases. With daily case numbers reaching over 1000 for the past three days, the province leads the country for new daily and active cases. The province reported a total of 1168 new cases on Friday, bringing the total case count to 9655 with five deaths recorded over a 24-hour period. Meanwhile in Ontario, Premier Doug Ford will be bringing in a vaccine passport for the province, despite saying for weeks that he would not do so. The decision was made in hopes of avoiding more lockdowns and restrictions.
- In the United Kingdom, experts are concerned about the uptake for the second dose of vaccine, as official data shows that hundreds of thousands of people have yet to come forward. The data from Public Health England (PHE) shows that nearly 20.4 million people ages 50 and over in England have had their first dose, while just under 19.9 million have had their second – a difference of about 500,000. While conversations about booster jabs and shots for children have dominated public discourse, experts maintain that ensuring all adults receive their first two doses is most important.
- In Germany, thousands of people marched on the streets of Berlin in protest of new coronavirus restrictions being imposed on unvaccinated individuals. The Associated Press reported that there were nine different demonstrations on Saturday, despite bans on several of the protests. Currently in Germany individuals need to be vaccinated, have a negative Covid-19 test, or recent recovery in order to enter indoor events and restaurants, or to visit hospitals and nursing homes. As the delta variant surges, the government is considering putting stricter rules in place for unvaccinated individuals. Currently about 60% of the German population is fully vaccinated.
- New Zealand reported their first death linked to the use of a Covid-19 vaccine. A woman suffered from myocarditis, an extremely rare but known side effect of the Pfizer jab. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle that can limit its ability to pump blood. The report comes as New Zealand announces 53 new cases, bringing the nation’s total to 562 for the current outbreak. "The benefits of vaccination with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine continue to greatly outweigh the risk of both COVID-19 infection and vaccine side-effects, including myocarditis," the health ministry said in a statement.
- Australia’s death toll has exceeded 1000, as the country struggles to contain the delta variant. The number climbed to 1003 after four more deaths were reported on Monday. Despite being a grim milestone for Australia, the number is low in comparison to other developed nations. New South Wales also reported over 1200 new cases, as authorities warned hospitalizations and deaths would likely continue to increase in the coming weeks. Australia plans to start easing restrictions when 70% of adults are fully vaccinated, a plan that’s based on modelling from the Doherty Institute.
Covid-19 – Due Diligence And Asset Management
ECB’s Villeroy Hints at Looming Slowdown in Pandemic Bond-Buying
Brief: European Central Bank Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau said policy makers should take into account more favorable financing conditions in the region when they decide on the pace of emergency bond-buying next week, hinting a slowdown may be in the cards. Any changes in the program dubbed PEPP would not amount to tapering like that announced by U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday, according to Villeroy, who is also the governor of the Bank of France. Yet the ECB should be coherent with the principle that has led it to purchase assets at a significantly higher pace since March to ensure conditions supported a recovery in the euro area. “On monthly volumes, we are looking at the favorable financing conditions, and we should underline that they are more favorable than at our June meeting,” Villeroy said on BFM Business radio. “We have to decide the monthly volumes for the fourth quarter.”
Crossmark’s Doll Says Economy Good Enough to Buoy ‘Tired’ Stocks
Brief: The stock market rally may be getting “a little tired” but it has more than enough fuel to continue, says veteran strategist Robert Doll. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is up more than 20% this year and has rallied more than 90% since a plunge near the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. Some investors are concerned that such a high valuation may not be sustainable, with the delta variant still hindering growth in some businesses. A “still good” economy means that stocks will “generally go up,” Doll, chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments Inc., said in an interview on Bloomberg TV’s Surveillance on Monday. “A good economy means good earnings so the path of least resistance has been and likely will continue to be to the upside.”
Wall Street awaits Zoom's next act as pandemic boom cools
Brief: When stay-at-home favorite Zoom reports quarterly results on Monday, Wall Street will look for details on how the video conferencing platform plans to attract more users as its meteoric growth brakes to its slowest rate since going public. Zoom's revenue growth has been decelerating as the economy slowly reopens, users complain of "Zoom-fatigue" and as vaccinated people return to school and offices. Wall Street analysts expect revenue to grow only 49% in the to-be-reported quarter, compared with multiple-fold growth rates in the past year. Zoom raked in millions of new users as the pandemic forced more people to work, study and communicate with friends and family remotely. The company is now looking to win bigger contracts from businesses, an area dominated by rivals like Cisco, Microsoft's Teams and Salesforce's Slack."Long term, we expect Zoom will grow into a broader enterprise communication and collaboration platform," said Rishi Jaluria, RBC Capital Markets analyst.
Asia-Pacific stocks rise; Australia shares recover from earlier slip as Covid infections spike
Brief: Shares in Asia-Pacific mostly rose on Monday trade, with Australian stocks recovering from an earlier slip as Covid cases in the country spike. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 advanced 0.54% to close at 27,789.29 while the Topix index gained 1.11% to 1,950.14. South Korea’s Kospi ended the trading day up 0.33% at 3,144.19. Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed on the day as the Shanghai composite rose 0.17% to 3,528.15, while the Shenzhen component dipped fractionally to 14,423.37. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 0.52% higher at 25,539.54. The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia closed 0.22% higher at 7,504.50. The country’s most populous state New South Wales had reported on Monday a record one-day rise in new Covid-19 infections, according to Reuters. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.91%. Investors in the region looked ahead to the release of earnings from Chinese food delivery giant Meituan on Monday.
Wall Street during the pandemic: The impossible is now commonplace
Brief: Despite the seemingly endless supply of brainpower and cutting-edge technology that’s put to work in financial markets, at times it feels as if nobody knows anything. That’s perhaps the hardest-to-digest lesson learned—or at least reinforced—from the past year and a half, during which the U.S. stock market doubled at the fastest pace since 1932: The accrued wisdom of Wall Street can be a swiftly depreciating asset. “If someone would have told me in March of last year, when COVID was first rearing its ugly head, that 18 months later we would have case counts that are as high—if not higher—than they were on that day, but that the market would have doubled over that 18-month period, I would have laughed at them,” says Steve Chiavarone, a portfolio manager and head of multi-asset solutions at Federated Hermes Inc.
