Covid-19 Daily Dashboard – 29 May 2020
An overview of key economic and financial metrics.
2 minutes to read
Download an overview of key economic and financial metrics relating to Covid-19 on 29 May 2020.
Equities: Global equities lost momentum this morning, with markets opening lower as US-China tensions overshadowed investor optimism over the easing of lockdowns. Despite Boris Johnson announcing further easing to the UK’s COVID-19 containment measures, the FTSE 100 and the FTSE 250 fell by -1.0% and -0.9%, respectively this morning.
Bonds: The US 10-year treasury yield has fallen by -3bps to 0.67%. Both the UK 10-year government bond yield and the German 10-year bund yield contracted by -1bp to 0.19% and -0.43%, respectively.
Currency: Sterling remains at $1.23, while the euro has appreciated slightly to $1.11. Hedging benefits for US dollar investors into the UK have decreased slightly to circa 0.27% per annum on a five-year basis.
Oil: Oil prices have slightly moderated this morning, albeit remain above $30 a barrel. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) declined by -1.1% to $32.59 a barrel, while Brent Crude was down -0.7% to $35.04 a barrel.
US Unemployment: Unemployment applications increased by 2.1 million in the week to May 23rd , the lowest increase since the coronavirus crisis began, but marginally above expectations. The total number of US jobless claims has increased by 40.7 million since 21st March 2020. This comes as the US GDP was reported to have contracted by -5.0% in Q1 2020, below the preliminary estimates of -4.8%.
UK Business: According to the ONS, 24% of businesses that have currently paused trading expect to start trading again in the next four weeks, while 31% expect to start trading in more than 4 weeks’ time. 79% of responding businesses had applied for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, with 27% of the workforce in these businesses, furloughed.
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