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Our briefing for Monday, July 26, 2021:
Jul 26, 2021 3:39:35 PM
- In the United States, the nation’s top infectious disease expert has warned that the country is going “in the wrong direction” as they struggle with rising coronavirus case numbers. Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with CNN’s State of the Union program that vulnerable people who are unvaccinated are driving up the numbers. “It’s really an outbreak among the unvaccinated…which is the reason why we’re out there practically pleading with the unvaccinated people to go out and get vaccinated,” Fauci said. He said government experts are still considering whether to recommend booster shots for people who are vaccinated.
- Canada’s central bank will adopt a hybrid working model once it is safe for employees to return to the office. The Bank of Canada has said they will permanently allow their employees to work 50% of their hours remotely. They will continue to follow public health guidelines as they prepare for their offices to reopen, and will not mandate vaccines or expect employees to show proof of vaccine. The announcement comes at a time when employers across the country are in the process of developing return-to-work plans as provinces ease lockdown restrictions.
- In the United Kingdom, case numbers have fallen for five days in a row, for the first time since February. It’s also the first time since the start of the pandemic that a national lockdown has not been in alignment with the sustained drop in cases. The U.K. reported 29,173 cases on Sunday, down from 48,161 reported a week earlier on July 18. Experts have said that warm weather could be partially responsible for the drop in case numbers, as more people are socializing outside. These figures don’t include the impact of the July 19 easing of restrictions.
- In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff says restrictions for unvaccinated people may be required if case numbers rise in the coming months. Chief of Staff Helge Braun told a newspaper that he doesn’t expect Germany will have another lockdown, but that unvaccinated people may be barred from restaurants, movie theaters and other venues because the risk is too high. Approximately 60% of Germans have had at least one dose of vaccine, while about 48% are fully vaccinated. Case numbers have been on the rise in Germany since early July, largely because of the spread of the delta variant.
- In France, President Emmanuel Macron called for unity as people protested the government’s Covid-19 health pass over the weekend. The health pass requires people to show proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from Covid-19, in order to access restaurants and public venues, or when undertaking domestic travel. Around 160,000 people protested across the country on Saturday, expressing that the government shouldn’t tell them what to do. Macron said the protesters are “free to express themselves in a calm and respectful manner,” but he warned that demonstrations won’t end the pandemic.
- In Australia, thousands of people marched over the weekend in an anti-lockdown protest that turned violent in central Sydney. State Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said around 10,000 people called the police hotline to report people breaching Covid-19 restrictions. Fuller said the calls were “an amazing outcry by the community, not just in terms of their disgust at the protest but at the way police were treated.” Protesters were opposing lockdown measures that were put in place over a month ago in Sydney to try to contain the delta variant. Currently only about 16% of Australians over the age of 16 are fully vaccinated.
Covid-19 – Due Diligence And Asset Management
New COVID variants tops list of market concerns - Deutsche Bank sentiment survey
Brief : New COVID variants now tops the list of concerns for financial markets, followed by inflation and economic growth, according to Deutsche Bank's monthly market sentiment survey for July published on Monday. A surging Delta variant of the coronavirus has rattled markets in recent weeks, fuelling concerns that world economic growth may have peaked. In a Deutsche Bank survey conducted July 21-23 covering around 550 market professionals globally, over 60% of respondents said they viewed new variants as more worrisome than they did back in April when it was last the top risk.
Goldman Expects U.S. Economic Growth to Slow Sharply Next Year
Brief: U.S. economic growth will likely slow significantly in 2022 as the services sector’s recovery fades, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The U.S. bank expects the world’s biggest economy to return to trend-like expansion in the second half of next year. It also cut its forecast for gross domestic product growth in the final two quarters of 2021 by one percentage point to 8.5% and 5% respectively. “Until a couple of months ago, our GDP growth forecast had been distinguished for the prior year by being well above consensus expectations,” economists led by Jan Hatzius wrote in a report to clients. “At this point, our forecast is instead distinguished from consensus expectations by the sharpness of the deceleration that we expect over the next year and a half,” they wrote
Everybody take the week off, Wall Street firm tells staff
Brief: No calls, no emails and no meetings. That's the order this week from Aquiline Capital Partners to its staff. The private equity firm is putting all employees on vacation, people familiar with the matter said. It's an unusual move intended to recognize employees and avoid burnout from the physical and mental pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic and the frenetic pace of dealmaking. Aquiline has more than $6 billion in assets and over 60 employees in its New York headquarters and London office. The firm has canceled all internal meetings for the week and told employees to refrain from calls, emails and chatroom messages, the sources said. If a company owned by Aquiline has an emergency, an employee will step in, one added
Jeremy Grantham's GMO says stocks are overvalued by every metric, but there are 3 strategies investors can use to weather a crash
Brief :Billionaire Jeremy Grantham's investment firm says stocks are too pricey, outlining their view as US equities sit at record highs, with the team offering their advice on how to navigate through what they call a global growth bubble. "Global equity markets rallied impressively in the quarter, pushing some year-to-date numbers into double-digit territory only halfway through the calendar year," said GMO in its second-quarter outlook published this week. Grantham, co-founder of investment firm Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo & Co., is a legendary investor who is well known for calling for a burst of the 1989 Japanese asset-price bubble, the 2000 tech bubble, and the 2008 real-estate bubble.
Churchill AM's Schwimmer: The Covid-19 crisis from a lender perspective
Brief: PEWire spoke to Randy Schwimmer, who heads up senior lending origination and capital markets at Nuveen affiliate Churchill Asset Management, to hear how he experienced the lending market throughout the crisis and how it keeps evolving into 2021. Churchill AM is structured as a private equity firm and is headquartered in New York but works with clients globally, and provides structuring, credit analysis, equity, debt, and capital investment to middle market companies, primarily those owned by private equity investment firms. From Schwimmer's perspective, he noted that the period going into 2020 was tainted with a certain degree of apprehension.
