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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.

Ozlem Tureci, the chief physician at BioNTech, said that about 140,000 people in Britain had received the vaccine, which the company manufactured in cooperation with the American Pfizer, to prevent Covid-19 disease, adding that the evaluation of side effects and tolerance is reassuring. Britain was the first country to agree …

The Bank of England’s (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.10% at its December policy meeting and kept the Asset Purchase Facility steady at £895 billion.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) board members announced a no change to their monetary policy settings after it concluded the December quarter monetary policy assessment on Thursday. The SNB kept the key sight deposit rate steady at -0.75% while maintaining the 3-Month Libor Target Range steady between -1.25% to -0.25%, …

The United States Federal Reserve has decided as expected to maintain interest rates near 0% during its two-day meeting that concluded on Wednesday. The Fed policy statement noted that policymakers are committed to maintaining asset purchases at at least $120 billion per month.

The Eurozone flash Manufacturing PMI arrived at 55.5 in December compared to 53 expected, while the Eurozone Services Purchasing Managers’ Index reached 47.3 in December, compared to 41.9 expected.

The International Energy Agency has warned that the start of vaccination campaigns to prevent Coronavirus this month will not quickly reflect the devastation inflicted on global oil demand. “The understandable euphoria around the start of vaccination programmes partly explains higher prices but it will be several months before we reach …