Weekly Analyst Update — November 16th

Coronavirus vaccine news lifts markets

• On Monday, pharma giant Pfizer announced that it reached a 90% success rate in a Phase 3 trial of its coronavirus vaccine.
• Following the news, markets went into rally mode, finishing the week on a high note, with the SPX500 closing at a record high on Friday and the DJ30 and NASDAQ100 also registering gains. Despite closing higher on Friday, The NASDAQ ended the week lower.
• The major winners were the travel, energy and banking sectors, and oil, however, other sectors such as tech also joined in.
• Thursday’s Unemployment Claims report totalled 709,000, lower than the forecasted 740,000, another decline from the 757,000 in the previous week. While more than 21 million Americans are still collecting benefits, the total is declining gradually.

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Trump refuses to concede

• President-elect Joe Biden has begun preparing for his term in office, however, President Trump did not publicly admit that he lost the election last week.
• It is possible that Trump will be the first President to refuse to concede, and some have gone as far as to predict he will have to be forcibly removed from office.
• While the process of giving up the White House may be ugly, markets seem to be unfazed.
• Biden is expected to promote clean energy policies, however, is considered to be moderate when it comes to corporate tax reform.

Bitcoin climbs above $16,000

• The world’s largest cryptocurrency continued to climb last week, trading steadily around $16,000 for the first time in more than two years.
• Bitcoin is showing indications that we could see new highs this year.
• Looking at the shorter-term price action we can see that price has formed an ascending triangle pattern: higher lows whilst being resisted by the $15,800-$16,000 level.
• Ascending triangles are generally considered a continuation pattern, as the price will typically breakout of the triangle in the direction of the prevailing trend.
• However, cryptocurrencies are highly volatile and there could always be a sudden reversal.

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Coronavirus second wave hits Europe

• Italy, France, Germany Spain, the UK and other countries have all issued some form of lockdown, as the coronavirus second wave continues to impact Europe.
• However, European markets still closed higher for the week on Friday, fueled by optimism surrounding the vaccine.

The Week Ahead

• Opec meeting (Tuesday)
• G20 meeting (starts Saturday)

Written by a team of experienced financial analysts at eToro.

This content is for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or an investment recommendation. Past performance is not an indication of future results.