Closing summary Time to wrap up. Tesco has emerged as a Christmas winner, on a busy day for UK retailers’ financial results. The supermarket giant grew its UK like-for-like sales by 8.1% over Christmas, but also reported that the cost of Covid-19 have risen to around £810m. Analysts said Tesco was well-positioned for 2021, although its banking service and its Booker wholesale divisions both suffered from the pandemic. Bike and motor business Halfords, and online musical instrument seller Gear4Music, also posted strong results -- but Primark faces losing at least £1bn in lost sales from the lockdown. The US jobs market has deteriorated again, with over one million people filing new jobless claims last week. The initial claims total surged to 965,000, while another 284,000 self-employed people sought help through the PUA scheme. Economists and investors said the figures showed the US economy needs more help. Stocks have risen to record levels on Wall Street, as investors anticipate Joe Biden pushing through a huge stimulus programme. Shares in UK travel companies also rose, on reports that over-50s were booking trips abroad in preparation for being vaccinated against Covid-19. Pimlico Plumbers, the London-based plumbing service, is introducing a “no jab, no job” policy requiring all of its workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19. One lawyer isn’t impressed.... Germany’s economy has suffered its worst year since 2009, with GDP falling 5% during 2020. Economists said Europe’s largest economy had coped relatively well, but is likely to shrink again this quarter as lockdown measures continue to be enforced. And musician Mick Fleetwood has become the latest star to sell his royalty rights. In London, the FTSE 100 index of blue-chip share has closed 56 points higher at 6801 points. That’s a gain of 0.8%, ending a three-day losing streak. Wall Street is having a solid day too, with the Dow and the Nasdaq hitting record levels on the prospect of more stimulus measures. Travel companies rally as over-50s "plan post-vaccine holidays" Travel stocks are having a good day in the City, amid optimism that foreign trips could soon be back on the calendar. Holiday firm TUI has reported a jump in bookings from over-50s -- indicating they are making plans for once they’ve been vaccinated. TUI UK managing director Andrew Flintham said: “We’re seeing more interest in holidays from an age group that wasn’t coming through before, with the over 50s starting to book, we assume, on the back to the positive vaccine news.” Yesterday, prime minister Boris Johnson said the UK would roll out 24/7 vaccinations centres, as part of the push to achieve two million jabs per day. Under the government’s plan, all over-50s should be offered the vaccine by the end of spring. Shares in TUI are up 3.8% today, while British Airlines owner IAG is up 6%, budget airline easyJet has gained 7.7% and cruise operator Carnival has risen 7%. Back in the markets, cryptocurrency prices are rising again - recovering from their plunge at the start of the week. Bitcoin, which tumbled back to almost $30,000 on Monday, is now close to $40k again (near last week’s record just below $42,000). Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA Europe, says: Bitcoin is continuing to recovery from its plunge earlier this week and is already closing in on $40,000 once again. It should come as no surprise to anyone that bitcoin has bounced back so quickly. We know it’s an extremely volatile instrument, the only difference this time is the absolute numbers are now much larger due to its growth over the last month. The moves earlier this week was not the bubble bursting, it was barely a correction by bitcoins own standards. It was a reminder of the downside risks in the space. There will be plenty more bad days ahead but as we’re seeing now, bitcoin bulls are not deterred and we could see more significant gains in the very near future. We could see an interesting psychological test around $50,000 which, the way this now moves, may not be far away. Mick Fleetwood sells music royalty rights to BMG Another day another big name music rights deal as Fleetwood Mac co-founder Mick Fleetwood sells his interest in recordings including global hits Dreams and Go Your Own Way to music publisher BMG. Fleetwood has sold the rights to the royalties from over 300 recordings spanning albums including Fleetwood Mac, Rumours and Tango In The Night. The deal means that BMG will also cash in on the royalty proceeds of the success of Dreams on video sharing site TikTok, which became a global viral hit when a middle-aged skater posted a video of him skating while lip-syncing to Stevie Nicks’s vocals. The video was viewed almost 3 billion times on TikTok and prompted a surge of almost 200m streams of the song and 86,000 sales of the album Rumours in the US, 43 years after its release. Fleetwood is the latest big name star to sell his music royalty rights as artists look to cash in on investors in turn aiming to capitalise on the value hit songs have in the streaming era. Justus Haerder, executive vice president of group strategy and M&A at BMG, said: “This acquisition highlights the value of timeless recordings in a streaming market which is increasingly benefitting established rather than newer artists.” On Wednesday, Shakira announced that she had sold the publishing rights to her 145-song catalogue, which includes global hits Hips Don’t Lie and Whenever, Wherever to Hipgnosis. Last week Hipgnosis, the London-listed music royalties investment firm, announced three deals including a 50% share in Neil Young’s 1,180 song catalogue and that of former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsay Buckingham. Last year Stevie Nicks, the Fleetwood Mac singer and solo artist, sold a majority stake in her catalogue for $100m to the music publisher Primary Wave. The biggest deal to date was announced last month when Bob Dylan sold the publishing rights to his entire catalogue of songs, including Blowin’ in the Wind and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, to Universal Music for an estimated $300m. Wall Street has opened higher. Investors continue to anticipate a chunky stimulus package from the Biden administration - shrugging off the latest signs that the labor market is struggling. Dow: up 82 points or 0.27% at 31,142 S&P 500: up 5.7 points or 0.15% at 3,815 Nasdaq: up 52 points or 0.4% at 13,181 Heidi Shierholz of the think tank Economic Policy (and former chief economist at the US Department of Labo) has written a handy thread on today’s jobless figures: The number of ‘continuing claims’ for unemployment benefit also rose last week, from 5m to 5.27m. That shows that more Americans have been receiving jobless support for at least a fortnight - even though many have now received the maximum entitlement and dropped off this total. This latest jump in US unemployment claims highlights the urgent need for a large new stimulus package, says Neil Birrell, Chief Investment Officer at Premier Miton Investors. “The US initial jobless and continuing claims came in way worse than expected. Employment is a crucial indicator of the economy and it has not been giving many positive signals for a while now. This is a step backwards. Even if there are anomalies in the data it looks like the virus is increasing in its impact. The Biden COVID relief package will need to be big and come soon; markets will demand it.” President-elect Biden is due to unveil his plans later today. Reuters reports that the package has a price tag above $1.5 trillion and includes a commitment for $1,400 stimulus checks. In another bad sign, the number of freelancers and self-employed people filing for unemployment support in America has also risen. Around 284,000 new claims to the US Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programme were made last week - on top of the increase in initial claims. US jobless claims soar The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims has jumped sharply, in a fresh sign that the US economy is struggling as the Covid-19 pandemic rages. The ‘initial claims’ total surged to 965,000 last week (to Saturday 9th January) on a seasonally adjusted basis. That’s an increase of 181,000 compared to the previous seven days. It’s much higher than expected - economists had forecast a small rise in new jobless claims, to around 795,000. If you strip out seasonal adjustments, the picture is even worse. More than 1.15 million people filed new initial claims -- a jump of 230,000 on the previous week: