Geo-political news
COVID-19 – Despite government efforts across all major economies to contain the growing spread of the coronavirus and reduce fatality figures, the latest infection numbers coming out of the European virus hotspots suggest we are no closer to current isolation restrictions being relaxed. Global cases have topped 1.5 million less than a week after surpassing the 1 million milestone.
This week saw the UK report their deadliest day so far. 938 fatalities were recorded this Thursday, taking the overall UK total to 7,097 confirmed deaths. The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was also taken into intensive care in the later stages of last week after confirmation that he had contracted the virus emerged earlier in the week.
Across other parts of Europe, Italy and Spain reported their most new cases in a single day. This came after signs were beginning to spark confidence amongst investors, suggesting the peak of confirmed cases had been reached last week. This rise in figures comes as Italy announced that it had begun to debate, along with Germany, on how they would approach gradually relaxing some of the restrictions imposed on the
population.
Forecasters have predicted that the coronavirus pandemic is set to rob the global economy of US$5 trillion of growth over the next two years. Swiss banking giants UBS Group and Credit Suisse Group AG have already announced they will be postponing half their planned dividend distributions for 2019 to the fourth quarter of 2020. Despite huge monetary and fiscal stimulus measures from central banks, warnings from Wall Street suggest the lockdown could plunge the world into its deepest peacetime recession since the 1930’s.
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