Friday 1st May 2020

Month-end has seen a broad sell-off of the US dollar says NAB’s Gavin Friend in today’s podcast. We’ve also seen equities hit, in part because of more bad indicators, incuding further unemployment claims in the US. Growth numbers from Europe also looked bad, with the ECB extending its low cost loans for banks to pass on to businesses, but we’re still waiting for grants – not loans – from the EU. The markets also seem to have reassessed optimism around the US government’s fast tracking of Remdesivir trials, as a possible cure for COVID-19.