Defeat, Collapse, Delays and The Hope of Hikes.

Joe Biden’s Presidency suffered an embarrassing defeat last night, as the democrats lost the race for the governors mansion in Virginia to Republican Glenn Youngkin. The vote was largely seen as a litmus test for Bidens popularity. The democrats won Viginia in the election by 10 points, if this is a precursor for next Novembers mid-term elections the democrats could lose control of the senate making legislation almost impossible to pass. This will cause uncertainty in the currency markets and a likely risk off approach.

Four further energy suppliers in the UK have gone under bringing the total to 17 this winter. The firms have gone under due to the soaring cost of wholesale gas. Ofgem will redistribute the customers to larger more established companies. The uncertainty will cause people to save what they can and only spend on essentials, this will harm the retail sales and consumer confidence figures going into the all important UK Christmas shopping period.

Shipping giant Mersk have commented on global supply chain issues this morning, the  company handles 20% of the worlds shipping containers. Chief Executive, Soren Skou has said that the firm are chartering more ships, keeping ports open longer and have opened more warehouses. Mr Skou has claimed that there are around 300 ships globally waiting to dock at ports with 80 in Los Angeles and a ‘few’ at Felixstow. The Danish company also reported a $5.9 billion profit from July-September a fivefold increase.

Volatility can be expected this evening around the Federal Reserves interest rate announcement, although no change in the base rate of interested is expected, traders will be looking at tonight’s 18:30 press conference for indications as to when they will taper their quantitative easing program and start to hike rates.

The Governor of the Bank of England a fortnight ago stated that policymakers would ‘have to act’  if the surge in energy prices led to inflation. CPI is currently running at 3.2% above the banks 2% target.

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