Forex Today: Electoral College Votes Biden President-Elect

• The U.S. electoral college has formally confirmed Joe Biden as president-elect. The House of Representatives just has to confirms receipt of the votes in early January for Biden to formally take office on 20^th January 2021.
• Coronavirus vaccinations have begun to be administered in the U.S.
• The E.U. and U.K. are continuing Brexit deal talks, with 31^st December now the remaining legal deadline. The British pound fell yesterday after gapping up at the weekly open by approximately 100 pips and then rising by another 90 pips. If a deal is not agreed before the end of 2020, the U.K. will trade with the E.U. on World Trade Organization rules, meaning there will be new tariffs on imports from both sides, which will negatively impact the GBP and to a lesser extent the EUR.

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• Global stock markets fell a little yesterday, with most “risk” assets lower against the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen, especially the Australian dollar. However, the EUR/USD currency pair closed yesterday at a new long-term high price, suggesting a further upwards move there is likely over the coming days.
• Globally, new coronavirus cases are continuing to rise exponentially, with a new daily record all-time high of 704,249 confirmed cases made last Friday.
• Last Thursday saw a record high number of 12,914 coronavirus deaths reported globally.
• Global coronavirus deaths have increased dramatically since early October to reach a level approximately 90% higher than the peak last April. Coronavirus new cases and deaths have begun to fall in the European Union, but both are currently increasing sharply in the U.S.A. A new “hard” lockdown has just been imposed in Germany and is about to be imposed in the Netherlands, while London also faces new restrictions. The U.S.A. is currently confirming more than 200,000 new cases daily and is now seeing more than 1,500 deaths per day.
• Total confirmed new coronavirus cases stand at over 72.8 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.23%.
• The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Nigeria, Panama, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the U.K., Uruguay, the United States, and Venezuela.