 Okay, very good morning. It is Wednesday 23rd of December and it is the final briefing that I'll be doing for 2020. So first of all, I really honestly do hope that everyone has weathered this kind of pandemic situation as best as possible, both physically and mentally. I know it's been incredibly challenging for a lot of people in a lot of different ways. So absolutely take care over the Christmas period. Do put the consideration of others on top of your decisions of what you're going to do over that period is all I'm going to say. But secondly, thank you so much for following us on the channel. I hope you really enjoyed the content. Hopefully found some value from it and we've got a lot more in store for 2021 to kind of up our game on that side. So yeah, just thank you from myself and the rest of the Amphi trading team. But look, let's get straight into this final briefing and talk about some of the new stories in focus then, going into the run into Christmas. And at the moment, both Santa and the Fed doing a pretty good job at just ensuring equity markets are staying supported. This irrespective of the fact that actually we had a bit of a downward move seen in the overnight session, which I'll get to in a moment, which came after some comments out of Donald Trump throwing a little bit of confusion, but in regard to getting sign off, which was seen usually as more of a formality after Congress has passed a particular piece of legislation that the president signs it off. But not Donald Trump, but I'll get to that in a moment. So a little of a dip overnight in the Asia session, however, it has recovered already. And as far as stock futures are concerned, the Dow has eradicated any losses back to unchanged as is the S&P, the NASDAQ just pushing on, if anything, a little bit of outperformance. And perhaps that could continue as a theme for the rest of today, because as I'll discuss the COVID situation globally at the moment, is definitely more in favor of some of those pandemic plays, as what we've been seeing over the last couple of days, given the spread now of this new strain of the virus has gone beyond the shores of just the UK is what's being reported in the US as well, still things looking particularly severe for the time being. So I wouldn't be too surprised to see the NASDAQ continue to outperform today. And those associated names probably to be the best of the performing single stocks and sectors. Otherwise, elsewhere in the currency market, the dollar actually backing off a fairly considerable amount with down about three tenths of 1% now just dipping below the Asian range in the Dixie and breaking out to the downside. And that has consequently just lifted up these major currency pairs that touch your dollar as they speak, just having a press on the pivot, which was the restriction of the overnight Asia range. Any break above here be looking out for a push back up to around 122, 37, 38, which would bring in around the low of the activity of supporting yesterday morning's price movement. And in cable, we'll talk a little bit about Brexit as well in the briefing, but I would say the price overall, irrespective of just looking at this from a trade perspective, I think the price really shows a lot about what people think about the prospects of a deal or a rollover beyond them, the removal of such a disastrous cliff edge deck 31st deadline. And as such, then, I think there's a degree of comfort taken out of that, which is why the pound hasn't really fallen any further at least at this point in time, but definitely there's a few updates I can run you through and things to look out for. Otherwise, crude oil still remaining a little bit more depressed, perhaps in some of the other assets, but I think that's fair given the state of the COVID situation I just described. That certainly is going to have some impact on demand expectations. And so just given as well, just how elevated we have been in the price of oil over the previous period. I mean, we've come back down to settle in this rectangle here at a previous significant area of resistance and support going back through late November, early December. So I think this is a good area of support. And I think it is a fair area as well in terms of the pullback that we see, you know, say $3 or so from those initial highs that we had just a short while ago actually, back on the 18th. And then gold pretty steady in the overnight session, trading basically flat up one buck at 1871 for the time being. All right, well, let's get stuck into some headlines. First of all, we're going to talk about the UK lockdown. And ministers are now considering whether to apply the strictest tier four restrictions, forcing nonessential shops and leisure facilities to close, broadening out from the southeast of England to cover more areas of the country. Those that is according to people familiar with the matter. We spoke about this last week. We spoke about it this morning. Well, I said yesterday morning, I really don't see any other choice at this point. The case numbers have tested positive yesterday of coronavirus in the UK was 36,804. Now that number is the highest on record, but obviously the massive undercounting that was seen during the spring where most thinking is that that number at that time was north of 100,000, given that we didn't have any form of really counteracting it or acting upon the spread of transmission at the time. So hence the reason it got so high. So given all the things that are in play now and that number standing where it is, and also the fact that I still see Christmas irrespective of the move on the southeast that happened last week on restrictions, I still see it as a super spreader event irrespective of that. And so I think the government does need to act. So to support timing of that, the Sun newspaper said last night that an announcement on a new tier designations could come as soon as today and could take effect then as a boxing day. And again, to me, that makes a lot of sense. I think that talking to someone, they were telling me about the statistics of any government in Britain that's ever taken any type of political action or around in and around the Christmas period. It has disastrous effects for the favorability of that government. So although we're talking about obviously a health crisis with human casualties, governments are trying to manage a number of different things here from their political perception to the economy to the medical side of a humanitarian crisis. So I don't think that they're going to cancel Christmas. But as they have done, I think they're just going to move to ensure that they're containing this as best as they possibly can in that way. So I would expect that announcement probably to come later today. I guess the question then is, do I think that that's going to move the market? No, I think most people would probably anticipate that that is going to happen. So that's the end of that for the moment. On the COVID side of things, there's a couple of things. As I said, the new strain is sort of emerged now in the US, Germany, France and Switzerland, according to officials from those countries. New Jersey and Arizona in the US have reported now their highest number of deaths, not cases, deaths, from COVID-19 since the Sun Belt outbreak that we saw in the summer. So it's going back to June, July. Deaths in New York City also are up at the moment. On a slightly more positive note, perhaps AstraZeneca's spokesperson has said last night that even with these recent mutations, they believe the vaccine should still be effective. Studies though, however, are underway to fully investigate the impact of the mutation. We had a similar type of comment out of BioNTech, which is the part of the firm with Pfizer, which was one particularly in focus, given that it's already being rolled out at the moment. I kind of see these comments, I mean that BioNTech CEO made that comment, and this is the Astra company spokesperson. They're making these comments without actually having done any real thorough testing as yet. So I can understand why they're doing it. It might well be on the balance that they have fairly high conviction that indeed it will still remain effective. However, for me, there's such massive risk tied to if the vaccines have proven redundant, because this would basically be like pressing the reset button then going back to the drawing board. And although now there's a lot of academic teams, infrastructure, things are in place, and we wouldn't have to take so long to get off the ground, so to speak, to start again. But that's not what markets have priced at this point. And so it would come with a very adverse negative effect, if that were to be the case. So one thing I think over Christmas, I'll be looking out for is there will be really crunching the numbers as fast as they possibly can. And with the acceleration of this new strain of the virus, I'm sure that will provide them with enough data set in order to get some kind of definitive and more conclusive answer. But that is something which I'll be watching out for very carefully. The other thing then that I was going to talk about was this overnight. As I mentioned, there was a bit of a dip in stock futures and Asia PAC region and local equities, but has recovered after Trump caused a bit of confusion about the outlook for the relief package that's just been signed off by Congress literally in the last 24 hours. And he's demanded changes to that bipartisan legislation to be rewritten. In particular, he demanded that lawmakers increase stimulus checks that go out to Americans to $2,000 from what he called the ridiculously low amount of 600 bucks. What do I think of this? Well, I think trying to be as objective as possible. So by no means am I trying to criticise Trump, looking at it from a tactical point of view, I think it's quite expected from what he has done throughout the last few years. I think the move is completely in self-interest with him looking to frame the situation, to channel the optics that would basically create this idea that he would have done more to help the American people. If I had my way, if it wasn't for the politicians, I would have given you $2,000, not 600 bucks. So for me, it's all part of that kind of strategy. Ultimately, I think by just tabling a figure like that, being so much significantly higher and absolutely unachievable as far as Congress would be concerned, he's kind of done his job because he will now just say that he could have got $2,000 over the line and that's what he wanted is other people restricting him. So this is very kind of Trump 101. You have the initial dip overnight. I think that's because people are very sensitive to the stimulus. The stimulus is much needed. I'd say a lot of Americans are quite desperate for it and that's a reflection of the increasingly stringent restrictions that are happening or resulting and what's going to be probably in the short-term period ahead, more higher rates of unemployment, so increasing jobless claims and things of this nature. So I do think he'll sign it in the end. His job is done. I think he's put it out there now and that's all he wanted to do. So I don't think it really creates an obstacle in that sense. So markets have recovered and I think that really justifies that kind of thinking. Another thing, Biden, we still have in early January, of course, to see how the final Senate sees play out in Georgia and the situation there, whether do we have a bit of a complication with a split Congress or do actually we get a blue wave and although most people are expecting it to be split, which kind of has had this then knock-on effect of shackling somewhat the blue wave mentality of ultra-stimulus, if that were to go blue, well, I mean one thing is irrespective of that, but even more so if it were to materialize and turn democratic, Biden is already calling on Congress just hours after completion of this latest round of stimulus for more relief stimulus to come in the new year. So there's something to just bear in mind. The other thing then is Brexit. What is the latest? As I said, the pound is up 76 pips at the moment. I mean it has come by way of a weaker dollar this morning to get things underway, so most dollar-based currency pairs are higher, Aussie's up 30, Euro's up same amount. But you could say it's a little bit about performance actually in the sterling currency, in the FX market. So Barnier told ambassadors yesterday evening that the latest UK offer and phishing rights are still the main sticking point that they've been trying to resolve this week. It was unacceptable. He stressed negotiations were continuing with many other issues already solved and close to being settled, according to people familiar with the closed-door briefings. Barnier has said his team is prepared to keep negotiating after the UK's post-Brexit transition period expires on the 31st of December, if that is what's required to close a deal. Timing-wise, RTE's Connolly, who's been particularly good on Twitter, if you don't follow him, I would suggest you do, that he said that there's a basic Brexit deadline of Christmas Eve to get a deal so that it can be ratified in time for the 1st of January. Officials, he said, would need four days at a minimum to draft a letter seeking provisional application of the treaty. So yeah, quite a few informed political journalists who tend to have the ear of the right people have kind of moved around that date now, centered in on it, about a deal coming perhaps around between the next 48 hours to give them enough time. Whether that materializes or not, I don't think it's that important. I don't think you're going to get a downside reaction if we don't see a deal before this side of Christmas, because they've still got time. And as long as there's time, that's still time to negotiate. And at this point, it still looks like either deal or roll. I think the no-deal thing has dropped in my mind quite a bit over the course of the last few days as they started to kind of make noises about possible flexibility over the actual deadline in itself. So definitely, the pound will still be subjected to potential volatility kind of blips in the day trading environment. The one thing I would say, because if something big does break, and if we do go down to the wire, I will of course do a video over the Christmas period. And I'll put it out to everyone. So don't worry about that. And that goes through if there's anything important that does happen. I'll still add content as and when. But at the moment, there still could be rumors, tweets, things like that. And if you're going to trade over that week of the 28th, 29th game to New Year, just be mindful of the market conditions. Things do get awfully thin. And if there still is a lot of he said, she said, rumor, mill type of activity, then the price could be all over the place as far as cable is concerned if you're in a day trading environment. So could be better served just staying out of it to put yourself out of harm's way and then just wait for the definitive conclusion either way and what happens towards the end of the year. The other thing is just going to have a look at the oil inventory numbers. So we had the API's last night comes ahead of the DOEs this afternoon, crude bill 2.7 million expectations actually for a draw. So a little bit, a little bit bearish on price. But I would say these things are kind of digested fairly comfortably by the market. I'd say the whole COVID demand stuff is really what's more impactful right now here and now in that respect. So DOEs coming later, definitely this will be our reference point for what to expect for those numbers. As far as the actual day is concerned, it's pretty quiet in terms of UK, European data, we then get into the afternoon. We've got PCE price index in the States, weekly jobless claims, of course, which will probably be watched quite closely. University of Michigan, but this is the final reading. Then we've got the DOE numbers at 3.30 and that's about it. So with that, I'll conclude the briefing, the technical kind of look around the charts will be given by Sam, our head of trade development on our Discord channel on Amplify Live and then Tim will be on the live stream as well later on this morning. All right, thank you very much guys. If I don't speak to you before, have a lovely Christmas, take care and yeah, I'll see you in the new year.