Geo-political news
COVID-19 – While fears surrounding health and growing fatality figures remain high amongst policy makers in major economies, market sentiment this week has suggested these fears have shifted towards the longlasting economic effects of the virus. This comes as damaging economic data continues to mount. The UK announced a sharp decline in their Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) figures, highlighting the scale of the
impact on the UK economy. The HIS Markit, who produce the figures, claimed 81% of service providers have reported worsening conditions and expect the recovery time to be a slow process. UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is set to return to Downing Street on Monday, after contracting and recovering from the Coronavirus. In his absence, there has reportedly been a reluctancy to discuss a final date in which lockdown measures will be relaxed.
Over in the US, the house of representatives passed a further $484 billion coronavirus aid package that is set to replenish funding to the paycheque protection programme for small businesses. This continued stimulus to the economy brings the aid total to almost $3 trillion in the US. While US cases rose at their slowest pace in three weeks, the state of California reported its highest number fatalities in a 24-hour period. On top of this, Gilead shares plunged for a second time in a week, after a summary of China trials of the
COVID-19 drug, which had brought optimist to the market last week, appeared to be a failure. The summary indicated that the drug was not associated with patients recovering at a faster rate.
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