Key Weekly Data Points – Week commencing 13/04/2020

Daniel Casali provides a round-up of key market activity during the week of 13th April.

Monday 13th

• Last week saw the FTSE250 record its biggest weekly gain in 36 years (+16.37%)
• Opec and its allies signed a deal on Sunday to cut almost 10% of global supplies, in an attempt to support the price of oil

Tuesday 14th

• Over $2bn of high-yield debt was raised as investors showed a renewed willingness to lend to junk-rated issues following steps taken by the Fed
• More than 16,000 deaths were recorded in England and Wales in the first week of April, the highest total in at least 15 years

Wednesday 15th

• US industrial output had its biggest drop since 1946
• US retail sales fell by 8.7% in March, the biggest one-month decline with 1992
• The IMF has suggested that net public debt will rise from 69.4% to 85.3% of national income in 2020

Thursday 16th

• Another 5.2m Americans registered for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total of first-time applicants to 22m
• Lockdown in the UK is to be extended for at least another 3 weeks
• The US rescue fund for small businesses ran out of cash after allocating all of its $350bn

Friday 17th

• China’s economy shrunk for the first time in 4 decades, with first quarter GDP falling 6.8%
• A quarter of companies in Britain have been forced to close down temporarily because of the government’s coronavirus containment measures, according to the Office for National Statistics
• Wuhan have added 1,290 fatalities to the coronavirus death toll after checking online data against information gathered in person

Source: Bloomberg.com

Ref: 56720eb

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