A review of the week past and the week ahead

What mattered last week:

• The S&P500 finished the week unchanged, recovering from a 2% fall on Monday.
• Monday's sharp selloff coming after some European countries banned travel from the UK in response to a new strain of Covid19.
• Congress passed a new fiscal stimulus package. However outgoing President Donald Trump refused to sign off on the bill, due to “wasteful” spending and insufficient stimulus checks.
• The UK and the EU finally agreed on a Brexit deal.
• U.S economic data was softer. Consumer confidence, personal income, and personal spending dipped, while weekly jobless claims rose.
• Volatility, as measured by the VIX index closed flat at 21.5%.
• U.S. 10-year yields closed flat near 0.93%.
• Gold closed flat near $1880.00.
• Crude oil fell for the first time in 8 weeks closing at $48.23/bbl.
• The ASX200 closed the week flat at 6664.8.
• In FX, the AUDUSD fell 2% on Monday to .7462, before recovering to close the week back near .7600c.  

For the week ahead, the key events are:

Australia: Nothing of note.

New Zealand: Nothing of note.

China: NBS manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMI’s (Thursday).

Japan: Industrial production (Monday).

U.S: S&P Case-Shiller home price index (Tuesday), pending home sales (Wednesday), jobless claims (Thursday).

Canada: Nothing of note.

Euro Area: Nothing of note.

UK: Nationwide housing prices (Wednesday).