On Wednesday, the most important stock market indexes in the United States had a monumental slide that led them to shrink in this way: DJI -1.1%, Nasdaq 100 -0.6% and S&P 500 -1.25% due to the increase in the number of cases of COVID-19 (taking into account that the country crossed 250 thousand deaths and the number of infected people is more than 11.5 million) and the slowdown in the labor market (also considering that the requests for unemployment benefits increased this week). Despite this, during yesterday’s session, the indexes had a small recovery as Congress again showed signs of wanting to reach an agreement on the relief stimulus for the crisis caused by the pandemic. As a result, DJI had a 0.15% recovery, Nasdaq had a 0.76% return and S&P 500 had a 0.4% gain**.** Gold, on the other hand, closed with a drop of 0.7% to $1,865.19, approaching its July lows as vaccines (which AstraZeneca joined in saying its candidate is also effective) continue to drive investor appetite for other, more volatile assets. This has racked up a 4-day consecutive decline of -1.25%. The dollar has also been sinking for 5 days in a row, with a cumulative loss of approximately 0.7%.

Meanwhile, Shopify had a 4% rally after it raised its buy rating at Jefferies, as mobility restrictions due to an increase in coronavirus infections may prompt demand for this company. In this sense, we will also have to keep an eye on the FAANG shares, which could possibly experience an optimistic surge due to this. Other must-knows:

• On Friday, Joe Biden, U.S. president-elect, will meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer for what appears to be a spurt in stimulus talks. Notably, Schumer also said that Mitch McConnell, Republican majority leader agreed to resume the talks.
• According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it is likely that a new safety standard for autonomous vehicles will be adopted in the U.S. This could directly impact companies such as General Motors Co., Tesla, and Alphabet Inc. so watch out for such actions according to what is notified about it.
• After the test flight was successful and the astronaut transport system was approved, SpaceX conducted, for the first time, the launch of a full NASA crew in what became the first mission between these two companies. This is an important historical event as it revolutionized the way space is explored and used today because for a decade now the US has been paying Russia to bring astronauts to the International Space Station. Unfortunately, Elon Musk could not be at the launch as he tested positive for COVID-19 on several occasions.