Weekly Recap 23-27 Nov

Despite the promising news about the Corona vaccine, markets are still turbulent with the increase in Corona cases around the world and the imposition of new measures to limit the spread of the virus, which affects the entire market in turn.

Oil rose more than 30% from its lowest level recorded 4 weeks ago. Some analysts expect that prices may reach the barrier of $ 50 a barrel, something that the most optimistic economists would not expect to happen before the end of the year when a barrel of crude oil was sold for minus $ 40 after the outbreak of the pandemic.

As for the yellow metal, it plunged more than 15% after reaching its highest level ever in August. Gold is now trading below 1,800 and reached its lowest level since July on Friday at 1782.28. The precious metal continued to decline, ending the week on its biggest loss in two months. Gold futures for December delivery finished lower by $ 23.60, or 1.3%, to close at $ 1,781.90 per ounce

In Europe and the US, we saw the release of the manufacturing and service PMI. the Eurozone flash manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) fell to a three-month low level of 53.6, down from 54.8 in October. Adding to this, the Services PMI dropped to a six-month low level of 41.3 in November.

In Europe’s largest economy, German Manufacturing PMI arrives at  57.9 for November, a better reading than expectations for a drop to 56.5 from a 30-month high of 58.2 recorded last month.

As for the services PMI, it fell to a 4-month low to 46.2, contradicting market expectations, with a reading of 46.3 and 49.5 previously.

In the U.S, Markit Manufacturing PMI continued to edge higher in November, rising to 56.7 in from 53.4 in October, indicating the continued expansion of the manufacturing sector. The reading was better than market expectations of 53.

The US services PMI came in at 57.7 from 56.9 and above analysts’ expectations of 55.3.

German GDP bounced back in the third quarter, with a gain of 8.5%. This follows a decline of 9.7% in Q2. In France, GDP jumped 18.7% in Q3, beating the forecast of 18.2%.

The United States ‘Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded at an annual rate of 33.1% in the third quarter, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis’ second estimate showed on Wednesday. This reading matched the initial estimate but came in lower than the market expectation of 33.2%.

There was grim news from the BoE, as the BoE Monetary Policy Report projected a contraction of 2% in the fourth quarter. This was followed by Finance Minister Sunak’s spending review, in which he said that the Office of Budget Responsibility had projected a GDP decline of 11.3%.

During this week, there are several releases on the economic calendar, the Eurozone inflation report as well as the US manufacturing, services and construction PMI releases, and the Australian Reserve’s decision, all on Tuesday. There is also the upcoming Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.