Global Markets News Brief

Global Markets News Brief

US stock market

The United States stock markets closed higher on Thursday’s session following news that the country’s senate had agreed to restart negotiations on the fourth instalment of the COVID-19 relief package.

At the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.15%, the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.76% while the S&P 500 closed 0.39% higher.

Tesla Shares Hit All-Time High

Shares of electric car company Tesla Inc. rose past $500 on Thursday to reach a new record high driven by news that the carmaker is set to join trading on the S&P 500 on Dec 21. Tesla went through a 5-for-1 stock split on August 31st when it was trading at around $2,000 per share.

BuzzFeed Acquires Huffpost

Verizon Media and BuzzFeed on Thursday announced the acquisition of HuffPost by BuzzFeed, and an investment that will make Verizon Media a minority shareholder in BuzzFeed.

As part of the agreement, Verizon Media and BuzzFeed agree to syndicate content across each other’s platforms, create an innovation group to explore monetization opportunities, and leverage emerging ad formats, including extended reality (XR) and AR applications, the two companies said in a joint statement.

Google Signs Copyright deals With French Newspapers

Google on Thursday said it had signed digital copyright agreements with six French newspapers, including Le Monde and Le Figaro.

The agreements were on the back of the European Union’s regulation that allows media outlets to request a fee from online platforms that share news from their pages. The criteria included in the contract included the “contribution to political and general information” of a certain publisher, as well as their popularity, volume of publication, and circulation.

In October, the Court of Appeal of Paris ruled that Google has to negotiate news revenues with media publishers for digital copyright.

Global economic recovery momentum slowing down – IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday said that the global economic recovery’s momentum is slowing down in the countries that have reported a surging number of coronavirus infections.

Citing a recent economic data report, IMF Managing Director Ms Kristalina Georgieva said the economic outlook “remains difficult and prone to setbacks” despite upbeat news related to the development of multiple coronavirus vaccines.

In a blog post ahead of the G20 summit, Ms Kristalina said that the economic growth could be limited by a potential delay in the mass distribution of the vaccine, adding it could push countries deeper into public debt.

US Weekly jobless claims

In the week ending November 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 742,000, an increase of 31,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 2,000 from 709,000 to 711,000, the US Labor Department announced.

The 4-week moving average was 742,000, a decrease of 13,750 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 500 from 755,250 to 755,750.