Today we are seeing a rebound in Europe, where the markets are reacting positively to yesterday’s optimistic statements by ECB President Christine Lagarde. Despite a hitch in inflation, the European Central Bank states that Europe is recovering well from the coronavirus pandemic. The ECB revised its forecasts for economic growth positively and the euro strengthened against the dollar.
Elsewhere in Europe, the British pound is cracking under the pressure of Brexit and Boris Johnson’s newest challenge to the EU, in particular. After Johnson unveiled a bill that violates the Brexit withdrawal agreement, the European Union officially requested that the government abandons this plan before the month’s end.
The United Kingdom said it will continue with the bill and put it up for discussion in Parliament next week, despite the European Union’s request. The GBP has lost 5% of its value against the euro this week on account of this move alone.
In addition, today’s GDP reports from the United Kingdom disappointed investors, showing a bigger dent in the economy than anticipated.
US President Donald Trump has confirmed that he will not extend the deadline for TikTok to find an American buyer. He gave ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, until September 15 to sell the social network to a US company. If it fails to do so, it will be banned from the US market and removed from the Apple store and Google Play.
ByteDance so far seems to be holding its own ground and has not made any efforts to sell TikTok to a US owner. Instead, the company said it will relocate its HQ to Singapore and continue its operations from there.
In terms of the economic calendar, today we learned that inflation was 0% in August in Germany, in line with the forecasts. Later in the day the United States will publish its own inflation data.
