It is official - all hopes of a stimulus plan before the November 3 election in the United States are dead. Passing any sort of legislation in the US requires approval in both the House of Representatives and the Senate (which are the two chambers of Congress). But now the leader of the Republican-dominated Senate Mitch McConnell decided to disband the Senate.
Recall that Congress will also be subject to a reshuffling next week as the election results will determine which party gets to fill what seats in both chambers. It is likely that Sen. McConnell is hoping for a Republical win and control of both the Senate and the House, which will take a lot of decision-making power away from the Democratic Party.
For traders interested in the stock markets, AMD is one company to pay attention to today thanks to the announcement of the company’s acquisition of chip manufacturer Xilinx. Moreover, US stock indices today are on the rise, having shaken off yesterday’s market pessimism.
As for Europe, despite the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the continent’s banking sector seems to have everything under control. Both HSBC and Santander pleasantly surprised investors with their recent profits.
Speaking of the pandemic, today the number of Covid-19 infections worldwide reached 43.8 million, about 25% of which are active cases. The United States remains in critical condition, declaring almost 70,000 new cases yesterday, approaching a 9 million total.
France, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany are also still posting high daily increases in the number of coronavirus cases. In South America, Brazil and Argentina are also still struggling with serious outbreaks.
The only region where the pandemic currently appears to be waning is Asia. India is still declaring more than 30,000 cases per day, but that is a considerable drop from its 90k numbers seen just weeks ago. There are still thousands of cases in the Middle East as well, but the numbers are lower than Europe’s.
