US

The US presidential race has been dramatic, with incumbent President Donald Trump claiming to have won the election, but since then the race has shifted in favour of former vice President Joe Biden, prompting Trump to file lawsuits over vote counting procedures in several states. Despite the back and forth, US stocks have risen sharply over the past few days, with the three major US indexes recording gains ranging from 6.05% to 6.49% over the past 5 days ending Thursday. Up till now, the results of the election remain uncertain; while Biden could win the presidential race with more than 270 votes if he wins in two more key battleground states, there will likely be no confirmation of the election results in the near future with legal challenges on the way; on the other hand, the market expects the Republican Party to retain control of the Senate. On the epidemic front, the US became the first country to break the 100,000 mark for daily new cases, while European countries are also logging in record daily covid cases. The US Federal Reserve left policy rates unchanged, but noted that the epidemic still poses high risk to the medium-term outlook. As for fundamentals, the ISM Manufacturing Index rose 3.9 to 59.3 in October, its largest jump since 2018. Next week, the US will release October CPI and November Michigan consumer sentiment data.

EUROPE

The covid epidemic in Europe continued to be severe, with the UK, France, and Germany all imposing lockdown measures. However, this has not dampened the sentiment of the investment market, as European equities followed the rise of US equities, and the UK, French, and German equity indexes rebounded by 5.81%, 9.07%, and 8.36% respectively over the past 5 days ending Thursday. Against the backdrop of a high number of new cases in the UK, the Bank of England decided to increase its bond purchases by an additional £150 billion to £895 billion, exceeding market expectations. Next week, both the Eurozone and the UK will release preliminary GDP figures for Q3 2020.

CHINA

China and Hong Kong equities gained over the week, with the CSI 300 Index rising 4.05% and the Hang Seng Index surging 6.66%. It was reported that Chairman Xi Jinping clearly stated the economic growth target in his speech regarding the 14^th Five-Year Plan, and set the goal of doubling the total economy or per capita income by 2035. As for economic data, the Caixin China Manufacturing PMI and official Services PMI for October were 53.6 and 56.8 respectively, both beating market expectations. In addition, Alibaba reported strong second-quarter results, growing 44% on a YoY basis. Next week, China's October CPI and PPI will be released.