Today the markets anticipate one of the most relevant fundamental reports - the initial jobless claims in the United States for the past week. For a couple of weeks in a row now this report has produced record high numbers of newly unemployed people, which does not bode well for the world’s biggest economy.
About 5 million new applications are expected to have been registered this week. If the number is higher than that, expect high risk aversion and a renewed interest in safe haven assets.
US President Donald Trump is worried that the economy will take an ever harder hit if the lockdown remains in place for too long, preventing businesses from operating normally. Trump has repeatedly mentioned the reopening of the economy, despite the warnings of experts.
The President believes that the United States has passed the peak of the outbreak due to a slowdown in the number of new cases in some of the most affected areas of the country. However, there are still reports of insufficient testing kits, so likely there are far more sick people than the hard data suggests.
While countries such as the United States, Italy, and Germany are considering reopening their economies, the United Kingdom, which has seen a recent increase in the number of Covid-19 cases, agreed to keep the restrictions in place for a few more weeks.
Though the reopening of the economy is necessary to ameliorate the upcoming global recession, the WHO has suggested that if the world opens up too quickly, a second wave of the pandemic could be triggered.
