Key investment points:
The global epidemic intensifies, and the new mutant in South Africa raises market concerns
About 582000 cases of covid-19 pneumonia were newly diagnosed this week, Compared with last week (about 546000 cases) worsened again, and the number of people fully vaccinated accounted for about 42.2%. Specifically, the epidemic situation in European countries continued to deteriorate. In addition to the slight improvement in Russia, the average daily newly diagnosed cases in France almost doubled again, and the epidemic situation in Britain, Germany and Italy also intensified. Although the number of newly diagnosed cases in the United States fell on Sunday, it was still at a high level, and the vaccination work was almost stagnant. The epidemic situation in Japan The situation remained stable and the epidemic situation in South Korea continued to deteriorate. The daily average number of newly diagnosed patients in Vietnam increased significantly, and most other Southeast Asian countries fell steadily. The epidemic situation in Brazil, Mexico and other Latin American countries increased slightly, and a new variant of covid-19 B.1 appeared in South Africa 1.529 “Omicron”, experts said that the mutant has a large number of mutations, which may be more infectious than Delta, causing market concern.
The sales of existing homes in the United States rose higher than expected in October, and the manufacturing industry remained prosperous in November
Sales of existing homes in the United States increased by 0.79% month on month in October, exceeding market expectations. The inventory of existing houses was removed, and the middle price of second-hand houses rebounded from the previous value of US $351000 to US $354000, with a year-on-year increase of more than 13%, reflecting that the US real estate market still maintains a certain boom, which may provide support for the export of China’s real estate cycle products. In November, the PMI of Markit manufacturing industry recorded 59.1, a significant recovery from the previous value of 58.4, and broke the downward trend for four consecutive months, or mainly due to the approaching Christmas day and the strong consumer demand driving the strength of production and manufacturing. In addition, the previously released manufacturing output data showed that the continuously sluggish automobile output restricted by the shortage of chips this year picked up significantly in October, The shortage of semiconductor supply has been gradually alleviated since the fourth quarter, which has also formed a certain boost. In November, the PMI of Markit service industry recorded 57.0, down from the previous value of 58.7, or mainly due to the deterioration of the epidemic in the United States and the impact on the recovery of the service industry.
PMI in the euro zone and the UK exceeded expectations in November, and import prices in Germany rose again
The initial value of manufacturing PMI and service PMI in the euro zone in November were 58.6 and 56.6, both exceeding market expectations, reflecting the driving force of economic recovery and output expansion. Germany’s manufacturing PMI fell slightly in November compared with the previous value, and the service PMI rose again; The PMI of UK service industry fell, while the PMI of manufacturing industry rose. In October, Germany’s import price index increased by 21.7% year-on-year and 3.8% month on month. The continuous rise of fuel import prices is still the main driving force.
Performance of major global assets this week
This week, the world’s major stock indexes closed down except the Ho Chi Minh index. The announcement of the new variant of covid-19 once triggered the largest one-day decline in the multi-national market. The long-term yield of US bonds fell sharply on Friday. The dollar index continued to strengthen during the week and ended sharply lower on Friday. Precious metals and fuel prices fell sharply, while natural gas prices continued to rise.
