1) U.S. payrolls in December misses expectations
The U.S. payrolls in December rose by 199,000, according to The Labor Department on its monthly job report, which was sharply missing the 400,000 jobs forecast by Refinitiv and slower than revised gains of 249,000 in November and 648,000 in October. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate, based on a separate survey, dropped from 4.2% to 3.9% in December, the lowest level since the pandemic began in 2020.
2) Cyprus discovers a combination of omicron and delta variant
Cyprus has discovered a new coronavirus strain that is a combination of the delta and omicron variant called deltacron. Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus said that deltacron has omicron-like genetic signatures within the delta genomes. Still, it is too early to tell the impact or severity from this new variant.
3) Thailand reports surge in Covid cases coming out of new year’s event
On the first week coming out of the new year’s event, Thailand reported an increase in Covid-19 cases, spiking from approximately 3,000 cases per day at the beginning of the year to around 8,000 over the weekend on 8-9 January. The government sector has strengthened safety measures in Bangkok by limiting SHA+ restaurants to only allow selling liquor until 21:00.
4) U.S. inflation could approach 4-decade high
The U.S. consumer price inflation data is expected to show headline CPI breaking 7% level on a year-on-year basis, which would be approaching a four-decade high. The market expects that the rise in inflation is the reason why the Federal Reserve decided to start the rate hike as early as March.
The U.S. inflation data is scheduled to be announced on Wednesday.
