Trading Volume highest in years: Trading volume typically dips in the days before and during holidays, expect a light trading day volume-wise in US markets today, but not this year. Per Bloomberg, “Volume on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index averaged 1.07 billion shares per day through Wednesday — making it the biggest lead up to Thanksgiving since 2004 and almost double the volume of last year, when about 580 million of shares were traded, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”
We think this massive shift in volume is primarily due to retail traders (like you) rather than any increased institutional activity, for now. Increased trading is good because it means more liquidity, therefore better price discovery.
AstraZeneca Vaccine Questions: The AstraZeneca vaccine is undergoing an additional global trial to clear up the uncertainty they caused with their results earlier this week. There are unanswered questions after the company acknowledged that a lower dosage, that was administered by mistake because of a manufacturing error, appeared more effective. The company and its partner, Oxford University, initially didn’t disclose the error and other details, leading the scientific community to have concerns about the vaccine.
“Now that we’ve found what looks like a better efficacy we have to validate this, so we need to do an additional study,” AstraZeneca CEO Soriot said in his first interview since the data release. The study will most likely be another “international study, but this one could be faster because we know the efficacy is high so we need a smaller number of patients.”
Meanwhile, the NYT reports that the US military’s role in vaccine distribution will be behind the scenes.
Money Markets Funds: JP Morgan predicts that the supply of investable assets will shrink by about $300bn, while the amount of cash chasing these assets has doubled to $3 trn. A key factor on the supply side is that the amount of Treasuries is predicted to shrink as the US government replaces shorter-term debt it borrowed to pay for the 2020 stimulus bills with longer-term debt. Meanwhile, the demand for these short-term securities is rising. On top of this, Central Banks plan to keep its policy rate close to zero at least through 2023. You will hear us predict this often, but rates will never rise again and are far likelier to go negative during the next episode of economic stress.
Tweets and charts we like:
We think it’s definitely possible!
Corporate profits rebounding underpinned the stock market recovery
Forward P/Es of major US indices courtesy of Jake
Bicycle index bubble. Bubble charts are so fun. Can’t wait to see today’s EV bubble on a chart 10 years from now
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Posts are not investment advice or endorsements.
