UK and European stock-markets are making a positive start to the week, bouncing back a little after last week’s losses.

This coming week will see more major companies reporting earnings, including Amazon and Alphabet, and the release of the latest US jobs data.

Last week’s decline was largely triggered by US retail traders buying heavily shorted stocks such as GameStop en-masse and applying a massive short-squeeze on hedge funds who were forced into selling longs to raise cash. Brokers such as Robinnhood, in a much criticised move, placed restrictions on their clients to curtail their activity. How this deveops and how much more of an impact it will have remains to be seen.

Last week’s row between the European Union and Astrazeneca seems to have calmed somewhat with the EU reversing its decision to place temporary controls on the export of Covid-19 vaccines from the region and AstraZeneca announcing it will deliver a further nine million doses of its vaccine to the EU in the first quarter.

In the US, ten Republican senators have written to President Joe Biden asking him to scale back his $1.9 trillion additional stimulus measures in favour of an alternative plan they say will win wide support.

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