Monday 16th December 2020

Two of the biggest obstacles to global economic growth have seemingly been removed, or at least sidestepped for a while. Yet the market reaction to the announcement of a US China trade deal wasn’t as pronounced as you might expect, and the initial exuberance in Sterling fell back a little despite the enormity of Boris Johnson’s electoral victory and the certainty of a Brexit by the end of January. Phil Dobbie asks NAB’s Tapas Strickland whether both outcomes had already been priced in, or are investors still cautious in case things turn bad again. Plus, why the Aussie and Kiwi dollars took the hardest knocks on Friday, and the numbers to look out for today, including a fair bit of data from China.