Initial jobless claims for the week ended Nov. 28 stood at 712,000 vs. 775,000 expected, putting an end to the increase in the past few weeks.

The number of Covid-19-related deaths reached a record in the U.S., as new daily infections surpassed 200,000 for the second time in less than a week. Hospitalizations for coronavirus cases are above 100,000.

Seen from Wall Street, this situation should push politicians to speed up their negotiations on a new support package, so that they have ammunition until vaccination begins to take effect.

In Europe, Brexit is still being bickered over with threats on both sides of the English Channel, while Boris Johnson is regaining some goodwill with his countrymen with the first approval of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine by a Western nation.

Meanwhile, positive economic indicators accumulate for China. At the end of the year, the country became the European Union's largest trading partner, overtaking the United States. The rapid rebound of the Chinese economy has enabled an increase in trade over the first nine months of the year to €425.5 billion compared to €413.4 billion for the same period in 2019. This acceleration is linked to the decline in trade between Washington and Brussels. From €461 billion last year, the nine-month figure for the first nine months of this year is €412.5 billion.

Eurostat notes that "this result is due to an increase in imports (+4.5%) while exports (to China, editor's note) have remained unchanged". The EU had already been China's leading trading partner since 2004 - it had then overtaken Japan - but it is the first time that the reverse is also true, i.e. that China is dethroning the United States’ first place in Europe. Europeans exported a lot in the automotive and luxury goods sector, while the Chinese focused on medical equipment, exporting 44% of world demand in the first half of the year.

PMI indexes for end services are expected everywhere today. On the agenda today, there is also European retail sales, the Challenger study on layoffs and the services PMI.