Market Data
| At Friday’s Close | Weekly Change | |
| Dow Jones | 31,098 | +1.5% |
| S&P 500 | 3,825 | +1.6% |
| Nasdaq Composite | 13,202 | +1.9% |
| FTSE 100 | 6,873 | +6.4% |
| Euro Stoxx 600 | 411 | +2.6% |
| Gold | $1,835/Troy oz | -3.8% |
| WTI Crude | $52/Barrel | +7.9% |
Headlines (Politics, General News)
- Nancy Pelosi announced that Democrats would begin moves to impeach Trump over the Capitol breach. Twitter has permanently banned Trump’s account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”.
- The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is “effective” against new mutations of the virus, according to a study by Pfizer. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which use RNA technology, can also be modified quickly to address new mutations. Boris Johnson said that 1.5 million had already been vaccinated, with the aim to vaccinate all care-home residents by the end of January.
Economy and Central Banks
- The U.K government is being advised by a commission to push for a strong approach to standards of imported food on post-Brexit trade.
- China has put in place new rules to protect its companies from “unjustified” sanctions, by US President Donald Trump over recent years.
Finance and Markets
- HSBC expects $310 billion to $360 billion worth of green bonds to be issued in 2021.
- Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $123 million to the DoJ and SEC over bribery and fraud charges.
- Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital lost 7.5% this year, despite making $100 million on a $175 million investment in bitcoin in November. The fund saw a net outflow of $1.4 billion throughout the year.
- Winton Group, David Harding’s quantitative-driven hedge fund, has seen its investor assets fall 80% from $33.7 billion at the end of 2015 to $7.3 billion in late 2020. The fund lost 20.5% last year.
- Cascade Investment, which manages Bill Gates’s fortune, has formed a consortium with Blackstone for a possible bid for Signature Aviation, a private jet operator.
Tech
- Google is being investigated by the UK’s competition watchdog to see whether attempts to tighten privacy controls in its Chrome web browser are also harming smaller online advertising groups.
- Amazon has told the social network Parler, an increasingly popular forum for the far-right, that its web hosting would be suspended on Sunday.
Companies
- Macquarie has pledged a £3 billion investment in green energy projects in the UK and Europe over the next three years. The investment will be channelled through the Green Investment Group, which Macquarie acquired in 2017 for £1.6 billion.
- Hyundai revealed it was in talks with Apple about producing an electric car. The Korean carmaker then revised its statement to say that it had instead received requests for cooperation from a number of different companies.
- Volkswagen and Honda have announced production cuts, owing to a shortage in semiconductor chips. General Motors, Daimler, and Renault are also suffering from the shortage.
The Sweeney Club 