 Okay, very good morning to you. It is Tuesday the 15th of December So I hope you're doing well gonna have a quick run-through then as some of the overnight news and how we close on Wall Street Bit of the disparity again with some of the stair home names outperforming given the still somewhat precarious situation with Covid in North America, so the NASDAQ up but the other two major indices just impeding down lower We're gonna talk about Covid in particular in the UK and the potential for a new strain and mutation of the virus We'll have a look at what potentially that could mean and we're gonna have a look at the European Restrictions that are being put in place at the moment and then we're going to talk a little bit about Brexit And then look at the calendar for the date ahead. So let's have a look at the Charts to get things underway and just giving you a quick read across on how things are looking at the moment And we've got very marginally higher stock futures in terms of the S&P's up around seven and a half points at the moment Now up about 50 if we're looking over in Europe the DAX though down about 23 points So a little bit of a mixed picture somewhat following suit from the overnight Asia-Pacific session worth noting in the Asian session We now some Chinese data industrial production for November came in at 7% year-in-year that was in line with expectations The retail sales 5% touch soft as an expected 5.2 and foreign direct investment 6.3% so the numbers in itself Okay, and just following suit is generally an economic Stability and pickup that we've seen in mainland China over of late. So nothing really too surprising there But looking elsewhere and other asset classes Gold has seen a continuation of its upward move. So whether it is the kind of ongoing COVID situation whether it's some this progression in the the stimulus talks and the potential Reflation idea gold continues to remain in recovery mode at the moment And just keeping an eye on the upside on that trend line from going back to mid-week last week on Wednesday had a couple of tests here be interested to see how gold performs if it continues to make some headway as We come up to around that kind of 1848 type area At the moment we've managed to break above earlier this morning the high that we printed late in the evening session What the reopening of trade on globe X for this week? So gold remaining pretty bullish this morning up around $14 Elsewhere in the FX markets the dollar is flat For the time being and just having a look at the major currency pairs in euro dollar Just having a look at one on a trend line going back to the same time frame So it's a Wednesday. We had to retest yesterday and we're around that point at the moment Which is also on the horizontal support line an interesting area of activity for This week so far. So that's around 12168 and a half in the futures. It's to see how I respond here obviously dollar has been dictating a lot of movement in these currency pairs, but At the moment then do we get the move back up? Obviously an area here that would be interested to watch as potential resistance would be up and around this area of 12190 up at around 22 handle then which is resides just above and then starts to encapsulate around really the euro highs here of this recent push-up that we've seen of course Since the persistent weakness in the dollar and the breakout through 120 in euro two weeks ago on the flip side on the down If we were to break through here I would be targeting probably around Then the lows that was seen yesterday afternoon here and then the further lows down to 121 36 Which would be the low that we printed going back on to Friday session would be the other way of playing the euro today In terms of cable just locked into a bit of a tight range at the moment Looking at 133 31 to 58 I guess the people a little bit apprehensive of really stepping into this market given the degree of Headline noise and we'll talk about some brexit headlines in a moment But for the time being probably just looking for any Breakout on the downside be targeting the low point that we saw from yesterday afternoon And then you've got the range Asian low that we had after the sterling gap up So what would be quite interesting if we started to see any deterioration in the pound is around how the market performs At the 133 handle that was that Asian low on the gap up on the we will go the extra mile common on the brexit talks at the weekend The gap fill then would look pretty heavy to get us that through the s1 on the daily You've got that previous high that was seen on Friday And that low that was seen on Thursday of last week as potential target on the downside on the upside We've got pivots sitting just above that range high, which makes it a little bit awkward some areas of resistance on the upside but on the push through there then obviously got the 134 handle here And then a progressive move further up towards the the high end of yesterday's price movement I know a few people were looking as well a potential trend line from The highs a little bit messy now having broke through that a little bit on yesterday morning session so for the moment then That's how be looking at the pound on either side and just waiting for Potential any developments on the brexit side, which we'll talk about could come as soon as today Whether or not that's the case was yet to be seen and then an oil chart Just having a look at the Asia Pacific low as Europe come in We're down about 40 cents at the moment quite the recovery actually seen yesterday We came off we broke at broke down through some of the price levels technically as well from Last week and it was pretty heavy going through really commencement of read the volume pickup on Nimex all the way through to the European exit really and then as we go into the latter hours of US trade We pretty much saw only in a full reversal from around 45 and a half up to 47 on really a great deal And obviously the the downtick not pinned only but OPEC coming out with their monthly report Trimming their demand forecast certainly didn't help things but I again as we've said before last week what I find Quite incredible at the moment is that anytime this market gets pushed down in the crude space such as here This is going to them to the kind of OPEC meeting territory and then here again Every time this market comes down it comes soaring back up in very quick fashion, which You know says a lot to me about the way the market feels at the moment is that? still underpinning a strong degree of support here for higher crude prices in in general, so Just looking at things here at the moment, you know, we're an interesting spot here the next kind of lying down I'll be keeping an arm would be more around one or the 46-24s And then potentially then a deeper move back down to the low that we saw yesterday if that was to play out otherwise upside 4707 is the late US high and then 47 30 47 74 which is the R1 and Friday high would be a target all right, well, let's get into some of the headlines because I want to talk about COVID a little bit and You probably would have heard the headline news yesterday, particularly if you're based in London London and parts of the South East are to move into Tier 3 from Wednesday Health Secretary Hancock said there are 1,000 Cases of a new variant of coronavirus that has been identified He said that the who the World Health Organization has been alerted to this and notified He said quote that there is currently nothing to suggest this variant is more likely to cause more serious disease And that clinical advice that is highly unlikely that this mutation will fail to respond to the vaccine that's being Developed but I guess this is Quite an interesting thing and I was reading a bit about this the FT did a good article last night and just reading through it to give you summation basically Mutations of the virus are quite common The reason for that is is that in order for a virus to spread there needs to be a transmission from human to human in this case And each human obviously make up is something different And so therefore although there are a lot of similarities the virus mutates ever so slightly and as it mutates further It starts to change So this is quite common It evolves through these transmission process what this and one of the big questions here I guess is that does the mutation change enough on two fronts to watch and one being first of all testing Testing is a really important mechanism to control and suppress the virus in that in order to test people You can identify then the current situation you can take then corrective action to try and Offset say rising case numbers if they're identified The second point of course is then the vaccine is rendered redundant because the mutation is so severe That the vaccine that has been developed actually doesn't work anymore and these I'd say are a little way off As I said, this is very common, but this could be one of those situations where if it starts to gain more air play and if practically more evidence comes in About then the degree of mutation that's happening Any sign that testing is going to be ineffective and then any sign that then subsequently the vaccine might not be as potent as perhaps the initial efficacy rates were suggesting then certainly this would be a Very negative turn in events for the quest to eradicate the virus But also from a market's perspective, which very much have built in now an effective virus Vaccine rollout going through into 2021. Hence the reason why we're up close to record high territory In the equity market for example, so something definitely worth Monitoring the UK reported just over 20,000 cases as of yesterday taking the total figure over the past seven days to 131,708 Now over the course of then a seven-day seven-day comparison cases in the UK are up around 21.6% Hence the reason why then much more of the country is likely to go into tier three when those latest Announcements are made on Wednesday here. You can see cases are rising in London and the Southeast Specifically and it is within the Southeast where this new strain if you like of new variant of coronavirus has been identified And certainly then this worrying and hence then the reaction to go into stricter Lockdown from the government because it could then put pressure on hospitals And this is coming ahead of or potentially could be a super spreader event Which is Christmas where in the UK specifically restrictions are going to be loosened for a period of a couple of days So at the moment they're looking at these patterns and you've got kind of the different Age categories, but here you've got cases in 60 plus Hospital patients hospital admissions and deaths and as you can see if you're looking at the Northwest or North-East in Yorkshire Pretty much all four of those metrics are moving lower Whereas in the case of London Apart from deaths which have plateaued same the Southeast The case rates in the elder demographic Patients and hospital admissions are all going up Which would be indicative in the end of an increasing death rate and so hence the reason why this action is being taken One of the things here is about the effectiveness of the tiering system This has gone through somewhat of an evolution for the UK because it was what criticized for its I guess Looseness in the first instance It has become a little bit more tighter and here you can see areas in the UK that have been under Tier 3 and under tier 2 as of the 8th of December and here you can see then The level of which that was a bit hard to see probably the shadow The rate when tears were imposed to where they are now So you can see the tiering up of tier 2 to tier 3 definitely has had an impact on Bringing down then the transmission of the overall virus in terms of case rates comparative to other areas Where it's been pretty constant A couple of things here to Think about one of the things is a rise in mobility is what scientists have said Rather than a case of this new variant that has really been the key culprit for areas like London to see Pretty exponential growth more recently in case numbers a lot of people saying that obviously London is much more Condensed if you like in terms of its population and its geography and demographics, but Otherwise then it's this idea that a rise in mobility It's quite a key factor are people getting a little bit pandemic fatigued at this point Less at endurance more willing to take health risks on the idea of then just getting back and resuming normal normal life if you like This of course warring So a certain degree because it does come of course ahead of what I said was the super spreader event And this is this is what we're looking at actually in America at the moment in America cases Particularly high at this point in time And test positivity has soared since Thanksgiving in the US And this is what's underscoring the fears in European countries that they may see a post-Christmas surge Again not to state the obvious, but obviously a lot of people whether or not they do adhere to recommended Restrictions there's obviously a lot of pressure then the Gatherings and so on lack of social distancing intermixing of different Groupings is going to lead them to an outbreak and certainly this is what we've seen in the US Which here you can see the share of tests that the positive has started to move up after Plateauing if not decreasing prior to the Thanksgiving period and what this has led to then is if you look at the actual US and averaging of more coronavirus deaths In a seven-day average, it's more than ever at the moment So we're higher already than the initial first wave that we saw in the tri-state in the spring And as you can see this little kink here in this acceleration is all coming in post Thanksgiving so what we've had in Europe, of course is Perhaps a little bit more stern approach from the offset The Dutch government now is stricting or imposing stricter lockdown measures for a period of five weeks That's going to take them out to the 19th of January in an effort to reverse a jump in daily cases and hospital admissions Germany is set to enter a hard lockdown on Wednesday until the 10th of January Italy is said to be doing the same stricter lockdown that same date of the 10th of Jan so Christmas is being Jeopardized at the moment in mainland Europe, but the Kind of government stance in the UK Present is still that they're gonna allow this loosening of restrictions over that period I guess there could be one thing to watch Could that change? We shall see I think politically I'm not sure if they they will do that for their own kind of political capital would be damaged quite significantly from a public Perceptions point of view given the cultural holiday of Christmas. So the economic impact obviously I don't think actually would be too severe because of the nature of businesses generally being being closed anyway over that period So it could be something to look out for but I'm doubtful whether or not that would happen So hence the reason why COVID-19 is particularly prevalent right now and restrictions are getting more more in place as we speak Okay, moving elsewhere. Let's have a quick update on Brexit. What's the latest here has gone a little bit quiet since the kind of The kind of high frequency of of talks and headlines that were coming out towards the back end of last week It's almost as if like it builds up to these crescendo pressure points And then nothing happens the deadline moves and kind of fizzles out and then builds up momentum again And I definitely think that momentum will build towards the end of the week At the moment the latest is then that Barney said that phishing rights can be settled Then the deal could come as soon as this week But he warned that there's still a lot of risk that talks could drag on all the way up to the end of the transition Deadline of December 31st people close to the British team has said talking about a deal as early as today To give the UK Parliament time to ratify the accord before it breaks up for Christmas However yesterday and officials said there was no significant progress in recent days despite Efforts to reinvigorate the process. So I'd say it's highly unlikely The deal will get done today if I'm wrong and there is a deal I would say just given markets aren't really looking for something this soon. You probably see a pretty strong Relief rally intraday at least in the pound and certainly we would probably plow through the highs that were seen yesterday through the R1 for sure Other than that, I'd probably say just keeping an arm the dollar And the dollar is firming up a touch as Europe come in So I'm a little bit keen to see if we get that and we break out of that Asia range fairly tight and cable And we get down to the lower bound of where we were in the Asia pack session after the gap up on Sunday night Then perhaps then it could be An interesting short player there downs around the one thirty two and a half type region in in cable Otherwise, I'll square us stimulus now. What's the latest there? Well by parts and the group of lawmakers deliver details of their proposed 908 billion in spending on relief House Speaker Pelosi and the Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer have embraced the group's effort But the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and other top Republican leaders Have said that they're in favor, of course of the Treasury secretary a guy on their team Steven Mnuchin's plan for a 916 billion dollar relief. So we're still at the same point at the moment, which is Similar to what I was saying yesterday. This is something that needs to be watched as we go further into this week I definitely feel that the end of this week is going to be interesting if the Fed Don't deliver any kind of mildly dovish tweak to policy in the wording around their commitments to bomb buying if the COVID situation continues as it is to worsen and result in more restrictions if there's no Brexit deal and if politicians roll this over again and there's still no deal and Also, this is really the last week of trade before any then book squaring going in for year-end As people will likely you know things will thin out as we go into the Christmas week next week I think the second half of the week could be particularly interesting Perhaps then in a negative way as far as financial market prices are concerned. So for the moment I think don't get too ahead of yourself. Just trade what you see and equities this morning. I'm moving up again and kind of with the Mental kind of planning how that I have here of the first half the week Perhaps things relatively bullish and it starts to sour as the week continues is is my kind of outlook at the moment But at the moment we're staying us.future just picking up a little bit I'm looking to reverse some of the losses that was seen from yesterday at the moment obviously the Nasdaq Still and was before yesterday the outperformer just given the COVID situation on the Election front just wanted to say that the electoral college members Last night in all six battleground states which Trump was legally contesting Have cast their results and they're all in favor of Joe Biden effectively then it's over As far as President Trump is concerned We're still going to look out for the composition of the Senate of course with Georgia in focus But as far as Trump's challenge on Biden, it's it's pretty much a sealed deal now Biden's got it as expected This was a headline as well I think probably weren't watching when the US stock market opens later Apple plans a 30% increase in iPhone production for the first half of 2021 That's a pretty bullish Planning here in their supply chain The Nikkei is often where you get these kind of leaks about the component part orders for Apple And this would be potentially quite bullish for the stock will be interested to see how they open later on how they've formed pre-market All right current look at the day ahead. What have we got? So UK data has already come out. So let me get you up to speed We have the UK unemployment change minus 144,000 expectations worth of minus 250,000 The ILO unemployment rate 4.9% against the expected 5.1. So if anything slightly better jobs data But this is October things are expected to deteriorate going further forward So hence the reason probably why you've had minimal reaction in sterling Because people are more apprehensive now about the near-term future Particularly with the UK as we've just discussed going to go in more larger portions of the country into a tier 3 Which means that pubs restaurants and things will be will be closed apart from takeaways and so on Otherwise going further forward into the US session You've got Empire manufacturing industrial production Manufacturing production capitalization and kind of your main events. So 130 and 215 ahead of the stocks open at 230 To look out for but that's pretty much it So I'm going to leave it at that let you guys get on with the day and I will see everyone else on the live stream in Amplify live. All right. Have a good day. Thanks very much