Morning wrap (18.11.2020)

• US indices finished yesterday's trading lower. S&P 500 dropped 0.48%, Dow Jones declined 0.56% and Nasdaq closed 0.21% lower. On the other hand, Russell 2000 gained 0.29%

• Stocks were trading mixed during the Asian session. Nikkei and indices from China dropped while S&P/ASX 200 and Kospi gained

• DAX futures point to a slightly lower opening of the European session

• A record number of coronavirus deaths was reported yesterday - 10.5 thousand

• France has lowered GDP forecast from 2021 to 6% from 8%

• Reuters reports that results of phase I and II trials of Chinese Sinovac vaccine showed that it is safe. However, phase III results will be crucial

• UK Telegraph reports that some progress has been made on fisheries in the EU-UK talks

• Trump ousted chief of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency after he claimed that elections were safe

• House Democrats urged Senate Republicans to start relief bill negotiations this week

• Bitcoin jumped above the $18,000 mark. However, price of the cryptocurrency slumped $1,000 shortly after

• API report hinted at 4.17 million barrel build in US oil inventories

• Japanese trade data for October turned out to be much better than expected. Imports dropped 13.3% YoY (exp. -9% YoY) and exports declined 0.2% YoY (exp. -4.5% YoY). In turn, trade balance came in at 872.9 billion JPY (exp. 250 billion JPY)

Almost 550 thousand new coronavirus cases were reported yesterday. Source: worldometers, XTB