The Day Today 2nd December 2021

  • Public health officials in California confirmed the first known case of Omicron in the US, the traveller was fully vaccinated.
  • South Korea has broken its daily record of coronavirus infections for a second straight day.
  • Australia Trade Balance A$11.22bn vs f/c A$11bn.
  • Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly, said there is no indication Omicron is more deadly than other strains.
  • Turkey’s Finance Minister resigned, replaced by Nureddin Nebati, as the currency meltdown continues, it fell 27% last month
  • Fourth jab for British adults looks likely after the government rushed through a deal for over 100 million extra doses.
  • Japanese government reverse course on a blanket ban of new reservations for inbound flights.
  • Apple told suppliers that demand for iPhone 13 has weakened.

The S&P 500 closed down 1.2% after the first Omicron variant was identified in a vaccinated person in California. Asian equity markets were steady and US equity futures rose overnight.

The Omicron Certainty
The Mathematics, it will be a burden to the health service; Human Behaviour, people have reduced their physical interactions, the CoMix survey indicates Brits have gone from over 10 contacts a day to under four; The Politicians, no easy choice, act too soon and limit people’s freedoms or wait and be blamed for excess deaths. It will be hard to provide anything like the same fiscal support as before; The Central Bankers, they’ve mostly pivoted to fighting inflation, the ECB are more dovish than most but they’ve already conducted large scale QE and had negative rates before the pandemic; The Markets, whatever it takes is dead.

The Week That Will Be

On this day in 1804 Napoleon crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I at Notre Dame in Paris.

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