U.S. indices stalled on Wednesday as ADP private payrolls disappointed, two days ahead of the NFP release.
Private payrolls figures which were released earlier today, showed an increase of rose by 307,000, which is less than the 410,000 expected in November.
Many believe that this is likely due to a surge of COVID-19 infections in November, plus the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. elections.
As of writing the S&P 500 was marginally up, with the NASDAQ and DOW down 0.15% and 0.11% respectively.
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UK first to approve Pfizer vaccine
A day after Pfizer announced that it had applied for approval of its COVID-19 vaccine in Europe, the UK became the first country within the continent to give its approval.
The next steps will now see the vaccine distributed throughout the United Kingdom as soon as next week, with elderly people in care homes and medical workers first in line.
A statement was released by the UK government confirming this. This read, “The government has today accepted the recommendation from the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for use, the vaccine will be made available across the U.K. from next week.”
The FTSE 100 was up 1.23% on the news.
Slack to be acquired by Salesforce
After a slow year for mergers and acquisitions due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Salesforce broke the bank to acquire communications platform, Slack.
Reports say that Salesforce has agreed to buy Slack for close to $27.7 billion, which is the most the software company has ever paid in any M&A deal.
Regarding today’s news, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff stated that, “This is a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world”.
Despite this excitement, Salesforce’s share price was down 9% as of writing.
Quote of the day – “Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy.”
John Bogle
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