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US President Trump has urged Congress to amend a $900bn coronavirus relief package to more than triple its stimulus payments to Americans. In a video message posted on Twitter, he said the package “really is a disgrace”, full of “wasteful” items. “It’s called the Covid relief bill, but it has almost …

Data from the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday showed that US inventories of crude oil rose in the latest week. Crude stocks rose 2.7 million barrels over the week ending December 18 to about 497.7 million, while analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll indicated a decline of 3.2 million barrels. …

The United States’ Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded at an annual rate of 33.4% in the third quarter, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis’ third estimate showed on Tuesday. This reading beat the previous estimate and the market expectation of 33.1%.

Russia’s central bank said on Monday that profits in Russia’s banking sector fell to 149 billion rubles ($ 1.98 billion) in November from 170 billion in October. The central bank added that Russian banks achieved profits of 1.4 trillion rubles in the eleven months of 2020. Russia’s credit rating agency …

Russia will halt all flights with Britain from midnight Tuesday, joining the growing list of countries to suspend air travel with the country amid concerns of a more-infectious coronavirus strain found there.

EXMO gets hacked, about 5% of the total assets lost

Hong Kong has banned all flights from the United Kingdom starting at midnight local time on Monday, becoming the first city in Asia to announce such a halt after the discovery of a new highly pathogenic strain of coronavirus in Britain. Health Minister Sophia Chan said stricter measures are needed …

GBP/USD has collapsed below 1.32, down some 320 pips on the day. The new covid strain in the UK causing a massive sell-off amid European travel bans and potential supply-chain issues ahead of Christmas. 

Employment in Canada increased by 40,800 jobs in November up from its level in October, as shown by the November ADP Canada National Employment Report on Thursday.

There were 885,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending December 12th, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday. This reading followed last week’s print of 862,000 and missed the market expectation of 800,000 by a wide margin.