The US top three stock exchanges all reached all-time highs last week, despite Friday’s dismal jobs report. In November, the US economy added only 245,000 positions, well below consensus projections of 440,000. The unemployment rate did fall to 6.7%, down from 6.9% the month prior. Wall Street chose to see the silver lining in the weaker-than-expected number. Traders believe the lacklustre report could spur lawmakers to move faster on an additional coronavirus relief package.

Last week the greenback continued to experience broad weakness within markets despite statements from Trump outlining that Covid-19 vaccine delivery will start this week as well as soothing comments suggesting that he will leave the White House if the electoral college votes for Biden. The DXY remained subdued beneath the 92.00 handle as EUR/USD closed above 1.1950. Gold selling continued as investors decided to seek riskier plays leading to a slump of over 4.5% for the inflation hedged asset. Looking to the week ahead, attention in the US will turn to the quantitative data set for release as market participants aim to gauge how the labour market has fared in the past month. NFP’s be released on Friday and is set to see another 500K jobs added to the market whilst the unemployment rate is expected to tick lower by 0.1% to 6.8%

Asian equity markets began the week positive despite the bank holiday in Japan as the region gained on positive vaccine developments and the recent news that some nations will be transitioning to distribution in the next coming weeks. Reports that the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for Regeneron’s REGN-COV2 antibody cocktail also spurred markets despite the rising infections in the US as cases mounted to 12mln. US President-elect Biden is also set to announce his Cabinet on Tuesday amidst the constant rhetoric from Trump suggesting that the election voting was compromised in some key states.

Asian bourses started off the week positive as US equity futures continued to extend gains from last Friday. All major US bourses trended higher as the S&P 500 posted a fresh record close to end the week. Despite Trump’s recent comments and tweets regarding the legality of the US election, President-elect Biden and VP – elect Harris are set to speak today on their plans for a post-Covid economic recovery. This comes as a number of top infectious diseases experts within the nation refute against the need for a national lockdown. At the time of writing, cases in the US have risen by over 155,000 as New York Governor Cuomo announced an emergency summit meeting between the governors of six north-eastern states to discuss potential measures to mitigate the spread. Within Europe, Austria has imposed a national lockdown through to December 5th and PM Johnson has been alerted to self-isolate after coming into contact with an individual who tested positive for the virus. Going into the week ahead EUR/USD trades above 1.1800 as German Chancellor Merkel is scheduled to discuss stricter measures to tackle Covid-19 with a number of EU officials.

Last week saw financial markets experience one of its busiest weeks of the year as the US Election took precedence amidst a number of other macroeconomic data releases including three major central bank releases along with the monthly US Jobs report. AP, NBC, CNN, Fox and Edison Research have all called the election for Democrat Presidential candidate Biden as it was reported that he currently holds 290 electoral votes compared to Trump’s 214. Though President Trump has not yet conceded and tweeted that investigations into the votes need to take place, markets were largely positive on news for Presidential-elect Biden. Risk flowed out of the greenback and riskier assets appreciated over the course of the week with equity indices also moving higher and posting record daily gains. In his victory speech, Biden pledged his ambition to unify the nation whilst he also plans to unveil a task force that will look to combat the nations Covid-19 outbreak later today.

Bitcoin Hits $14,000 Exactly 12 Years After Whitepaper

On October 31st, Bitcoin reached and surpassed $14,000. During the same day in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released his Bitcoin white paper. Ever since its release, Bitcoin has seen an exponential growth in market capitalization.

In retrospect, this makes the third post-halving cycle as being profitable from a price perspective. Even though there are multiple factors that might have lead to this point, historically halvings have had a positive impact on the price action.