Today is a relatively quiet day in terms of fundamental reports.
Australia published a slightly better than expected balance of trade for October, as well as retail sales for the same month, which were in line with the forecast at 4.9%.
Europe today is delivering several unemployment rate reports for October. Italy’s jobless rate was somewhat higher than expected at 9.4%, which was a bit of a surprise, considering most reports from Italy have been positive recently.
The eurozone-wide unemployment rate was 7.3%, exactly as predicted, so no surprises there.
Later today the United States will publish its jobless claims data for the past week. Today there reports might be of a bit more interest as a foreshadowing of tomorrow’s non-farm payrolls for November.
Several prominent members of the Federal Reserve will also speak after the joblessness data is published.
Meanwhile, the excitement surrounding Omicron continues. The new variant now accounts for about 80% of coronavirus patients in South Africa. This number is a testament to the variant’s greater ability to spread and also suggests that Omicron might soon replace Delta as the predominant coronavirus variant around the world.
The United States joined the long list of countries that have confirmed cases of people infected with the Omicron variant. In just a week since the existence of this strain became known, Omicron has already reached at least four continents.
In other noteworthy news, today OPEC and its allies are meeting to decide their output volumes for January. Previously, the OPEC+ members were implementing gradual, but regular increases in output to benefit from the multi-year price highs of crude oil, while demand was generally recovering.
However, experts within OPEC warned that the oil market might be reaching a state of oversupply again. Plus, the arrival of a new Covid-19 strain might cause a further drop in demand as countries limit travel and industrial output amid lockdowns.
Thus, there is widespread speculation that OPEC+ will not increase its quotas this time around. Oil prices for now remain below $70 per barrel.
