Last week market sentiment was jumping around amidst global events, in large from the US. Firstly, newswire saw Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, declared as winners of the US Presidential election, pending legal challenges from the Trump camp; these are still ongoing. However, the big shift in investor sentiment was driven by the news of a COVID vaccine. German company BioNTech and the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced via a press release on Monday that their jointly developed vaccine candidate had outperformed expectations in the crucial phase 3 trials, proving 90% effective in stopping people from falling ill. This resulted in equity and oil markets pushing significantly higher whilst the US Dollar weakened as a result. As the week progressed investor sentiment tapered as the market continued to decipher and articulate how this can be rolled out and what challenges remain. In the meantime, the UK’s economic challenges remain as data disappointed somewhat. The UK jobs data reinforced unease over labour-market trends, especially a sharp increase in redundancies. The headline unemployment rate rose to 4.8% from 4.5%  An extension of the furlough scheme provided an element of relief and Sterling was also protected by optimism that vaccine developments would help provide a key lifeline for the economy. The UK's economy bounced back from recession with record growth of 15.5% in July to September, this was slightly below expectations. Furthermore analysts warned that it was likely to shrink again in the final three months of the year

Last week the main focus was on the US Presidential Election which in the end dragged into the weekend following an unprecedented number of postal votes in particular states. However, over the weekend, Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, were declared as the winners of the US Presidential election, pending legal challenges from the Trump camp. The US Dollar weakened on the back of this news, but the news will continue to be monitored for legal challenge developments. The market will continue to analyse the situation but also look at what this means for markets in the long term especially with Brexit trade talks continuing. In the meantime, Sterling received a boost last week as The Bank of England (BoE) expanded its bond-buying program by a bigger-than-expected £150 billion in another round of stimulus to help the economy through a second wave of Coronavirus restrictions. This will start in January and finish by the end of 2021, the BoE said. Officials are ready to step up the pace of purchases if market functioning worsens. Officials led by Governor Andrew Bailey voted unanimously to increase their asset-purchase target to 875 billion Pounds and keep the benchmark interest rate at 0.1%. Officials also slashed their estimates for economic growth, saying they now expected a contraction in the fourth quarter. More positive for Sterling was that there was talks of negative interest rates. In addition, Chancellor Sunak extends furlough out till March 21. Looking to the week ahead, the market