Closing summary Time for a recap Concerns over rising Covid-19 cases, particularly in the US, have weighed on markets. While investors hope that vaccines will help the global economy recover next year, policymakers are warning that the new wave of infections is damaging growth right now. European stocks have dipped by around 0.75%, a day after Wall Street dropped around 1% after the US death toll hit 250,000 and New York temporarily closed its schools again. With US cases at record levels, there are concerns that Thanksgiving could create another surge. The US labour market appears to be struggling in the face of the pandemic, with new unemployment claims rising. Around 742,000 initial claims were filed last week, which economists said was a worrying increase. There are also growing concerns that millions of people will lose support next month when the existing pandemic unemployment assistance programmes expire. Department chain Macy’s gave a reminder of the problems in retail, with sales down 20% in the last quarter. The US housing market remains unconcerned, though, with sales and prices rattling higher. In the UK, over 4,700 jobs are at risk as the fashion chains Peacocks, Jaeger, Austin Reed and Jacques Vert fall into administration. The crisis is hurting many British businesses. One in seven UK firms has little confidence it will be trading in three months, with a third of hospitality firms fearing collapse. In another blow, UK factories have reported a drop in orders this month. The International Monetary Fund warned the recovery from the economic slump earlier this year may be “losing momentum”. It wants leaders to cooperate on vaccine rollouts, saying that some governments could provide more fiscal support too. Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, told MEPs that second wave of Covid-19 cases is causing significant damage to the eurozone economy. Lagarde warned that it is vital to pass the EU’s new stimulus package, after Hungary and Poland blocked the new EU budget. The Next Generation EU package must become operational without delay. The package’s additional resources can facilitate expansionary fiscal policies, most notably in those euro area countries with limited fiscal space. In a timely example of this damage, eurozone construction output has fallen. We’ve also seen new signs of the impact of the pandemic on the UK, with Royal Mail now generating more revenue from parcels than letters. Naked Wine is contributing to this trend, after growing sales by 80% as Brits stocked up their drinks cabinets and wine racks to survive the lockdown. Price comparison site Comparethemarket.com has been fined £17.9m, after preventing home insurers on its platform from offering better prices on rival sites. Games retailers have been overwhelmed by demand for PlayStation’s latest console. Goodnight. GW Today has been a difficult one for some UK gamers, and retailers who have been overwhelmed by demand for PlayStation’s latest console. Sarah Butler has the story.... Web pages dedicated to the launch of the PlayStation 5 at John Lewis, Tesco and Game had all crashed on Thursday morning. Currys had introduced a queuing system that had tens of thousands of customers on hold on Thursday morning. With much of their stock already sold via orders placed before the launch, Game, Currys, John Lewis and Argos all said they had sold out of the £449 console by 10.10am on Thursday. However, thousands of consoles were available on auction site eBay for more than double the list price, with some sellers asking for more than £1,000. Europe closes lower European stock markets have closed, with small losses across the main exchanges. The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares ended 50 points lower, down 0.8% at 6334. Chemicals firm Johnson Matthey was the top faller, down 5.5%. It reported an 88% drop in profits this morning, after weak demand for its automotive catalysts amid the pandemic. Melrose (-4.6%) and Rolls-Royce (-3.9%) were close behind (both have aerospace operations), with property firm British Land down 3.7%. BP lost 3.2%, with the oil price slipping a little today. Supermarkets, technology focused companies and pharmaceutical firms had a better day, though. Fiona Cincotta of Gain Capital says fears over the near-term economic growth outlook overshadowed more upbeat vaccine news. This time it was the turn of AstraZeneca to inform as to how its covid -19 vaccine is performing in recent trials. The vaccine was found to provoke a robust immune response, particularly in older adults in Phase 2 trials. Whilst this is great news, after the big hitting data from Pfizer and Moderna this week, AstraZeneca’s was insufficient to overshadow fears of rising covid cases, tighter lockdowns and the impact on the economy. The Europe-wide Stoxx 600 closed down 0.73%, with Germany’s DAX down 0.87% and France’s CAC off 0.75%, as markets handed back some of their stellar November gains. Jobs at risk as Peacocks and Jaeger call in administrators Britain’s retail crisis has deepened this evening, with the news that the fashion chains Peacocks and Jaeger have fallen into administration. The move puts more than 4,700 jobs at risk, after the troubled businesses were unable to find a buyer during rescue talks over the last couple of weeks. My colleague Sarah Butler explains: Fashion chains Peacocks and Jaeger have called in administrators putting nearly 4,800 jobs at risk. The businesses are part of entrepreneur Philip Day’s retail Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group empire which issued a warning last month that it was on the brink of collapse. Peacocks, a Cardiff-based fast fashion chain, employs 4,369 staff across its 423 stores and up-market brand Jaeger, which employs 347 across 76 outlets, have been put into administration as talks on a rescue package have not been successful ahead of a legal deadline tomorrow. No redundancies or store permanent closures have been made and administrators said the businesses would continue to trade while they looked at options for their future. Tony Wright, Joint Administrator and Partner at FRP, says: “Jaeger and Peacocks are attractive brands that have suffered the well-known challenges that many retailers face at present. We are in advanced discussions with a number of parties and working hard to secure a future for both businesses.” US home sales keep rising despite Covid-19 The US housing market continues to shrug off the pandemic. Sales of existing homes (ie, not new builds) increased for a fifth straight month in October, rising 4.3% month-on-month, as record low interest rates continue to support demand. On an annual basis, sales surged 26.6% to an annualized rate of 6.85 million sales - the highest in almost 15 years. Prices have surged too - the median existing house price is up 15.5% from a year ago to a record $313,000 in October. Pressure to move to larger properties, following the lockdowns and move to home working, is a factor, points out Reuters: Existing home sales, which account for the bulk of U.S. home sales, jumped 26.6% on a year-on-year basis in October. Sales increased in all four regions last month and continued to be concentrated in the upper price end of the market. The housing market is being driven by record low mortgage rates. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen at least 21% of the labor force working from home, has led to a migration from city centers to suburbs and other low-density areas as Americans seek out spacious accommodation for home offices and schools. Back in Europe, the markets remain subdued with just over an hour’s trading to go: FTSE 100: down 59 points or 0.9% at 6325 German DAX: down 68 points or 0.5% at 13,133 French CAC: down 23 points or 0.4% at 5,488 Mark Warner, Democratic Senator from Virginia, sums up the need to extend America’s pandemic support packages before they expire next month: Richard Flynn, UK managing director at Charles Schwab, says the jobs recovery in the US seems to be stalling, as the pandemic intensifies: “This week’s significant increase in US jobless claims indicates the U.S. labour market’s slow, but steady, recovery may have stalled due to a second wave of COVID-19. While temporary layoffs have been falling, permanent job losses have been rising recently, and there is yet to be sign of a definitive reversal of this trend. Wall Street has opened a little lower, with today’s rise in unemployment claims fuelling concerns over the labor market. Worries over the escalating Covid-19 crisis are also weighing on traders’ minds, with the US death toll now over 250,000. The Dow Jones industrial average, which fell 1.1% yesterday, has dipped by another 0.4% or 120 points to 29,317, having closed at record highs earlier this week. The broader S&P 500 has slipped by 0.4% to 3,554 points, while the tech-focused Nasdaq is down 0.1% at 11,787. Fears grow over expiring US unemployment packages The number of unemployed Americans applying for help through the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) scheme has also risen, to nearly 4.4m. PEUC gives another 13 weeks of jobless support once the standard state assistance has been exhausted. It’s part of the CARES Act programme, and is due to run out at the end of December unless Congress agrees a new stimulus package (as is the PUA programme for freelance and self-employed workers) AnnElizabeth Konkel of jobs site Indeed.com explains why this is a concern: CBS News reported this week that some families would be pushed into poverty if the PEUC and PUA schemes are allowed to expire. About 12 million jobless workers around the U.S. will lose their unemployment benefits the day after Christmas, according to a new analysis. The benefits cutoff could push many households into poverty while creating headwinds for the economic recovery, experts say. Greg Daco of Oxford Economics is also concerned: Economist: jobless claims at "unhealthy levels" Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor Senior Economist, says the number of Americans filing new jobless support claims are unhealthily high, having jumped to 742,000 last week. He also warns of benefit ‘exhaustion’, as the programmes approved earlier this year to support the economy run out. “Initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims rose, maintaining unhealthy levels at a time when COVID-19 cases are reaching alarming rates around the country. Continuing claims dropped below their pre-pandemic record set during the Great Recession, but it’s mostly driven by benefit exhaustion for 9 million claimants. Zhao warns that millions more Americans will lose support, unless Congress acts quickly and approves a new stimulus bill: The U.S. faces a potentially long winter as millions of Americans have had their unemployment benefits expire and 12 million more face a looming benefits cliff in December. Congressional failure to act would be an extraordinary blow to unemployed Americans and would affect over half of the 20 million current UI claimants. The summer’s steady recovery is now well in the distance as health experts raise the alarm about a tough pandemic winter. Spiking cases and expired benefits are ingredients for a vicious cycle where Americans are pushed back into the workforce when the virus is already widespread. The combined health and economic crises could echo some of the harsh impacts felt in the spring rather than the steady recovery seen over the summer.” Here’s Bloomberg’s take on the rise in US jobless claims: Applications for U.S. state unemployment benefits rose for the first time in five weeks, suggesting the labor-market recovery is slowing amid a surging pandemic and fresh business restrictions. Initial jobless claims in regular state programs totaled 742,000 in the week ended Nov. 14, up 31,000 from the prior week, Labor Department data showed Thursday. On an unadjusted basis, the figure increased by about 18,000. The week included Veterans Day, and claims data tend to be more volatile around holidays. US initial jobless claims rise to 742,000 The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefit has jumped, in a sign that the US economy is struggling. Some 742,000 new claims for jobless support were filed last week, up from 711,000 in the previous seven days. That’s higher than expected (economists forecast a fall to 707,000), at a time when Covid-19 cases are rising alarmingly in the US. In addition, another 320,000 people filed unemployment claims through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (aimed at freelancers, gig economy workers, and others who don’t quality for initial claims). The number of ‘continued claims’ (people receiving unemployment help for at least two weeks) has fallen, to 6.372m from 6.801m -- but that may show that claimants have exhausted their entitlement, rather than finding new jobs.