OPEC Report, Seychelles, US Inflation, and UK GDP

The main news of yesterday can be considered the publication of the monthly OPEC report. Although there was nothing supernova about it. Previous estimates were left unchanged. And despite the decline in US oil reserves (API data), oil did not grow. The reason is the pandemic situation in India and the possible development of events in this regard. Let us explain the thought.

In the Seychelles, meanwhile, the number of cases is growing. It would seem, well, who cares about these islands. But the root of the anger is that 37% (!) Of cases of new diseases occurred in people who were already vaccinated (!). Recall that at the start of the week, WHO announced the Indian strain of the virus (with a triple mutation) as a potential threat to the whole world. If this mutation really breaks through the vaccination defense as easily as it happens in the Seychelles, then the world is in for a very unpleasant surprise in the foreseeable future.

Today is interesting because of the data on the UK GDP, as well as the US inflation statistics.

Further unwinding of the inflationary spiral in the US may finish off the US stock market, which this week does not feel very well without it.

As for the UK GDP, the data is likely to come out weak, since in the first quarter the country was mostly in a lockdown. And the economic price of a lockdown could have been estimated a year ago, when the country's GDP fell by 20% in the second quarter. Obviously, we will not see anything of the kind on Wednesday, but we cannot count on a sharp rise in the quarterly indicator.

The reasons for this pessimism against the backdrop of the seemingly successful vaccination campaign in the UK (more than half of the population has already been vaccinated): many restaurants, theaters and shops remain closed, and the migrant workers who served them fled tens of thousands to their countries of origin during the lockdown... Even as most of the bans expire in June, new border restrictions following the UK's exit from the European Union will make it difficult for many to return. That is, even if work appears, there will be no one to work. Last week's NFPs are a direct confirmation of this idea.