Can Europe prevent a summer of lockdowns this year?
The firm says that this puts Europe’s summer reopening at risk and that could exacerbate the North-South divide in the region and could trigger further ECB policy easing.

The steepening in the yield curve is the story in European trading today
The surge higher in Treasury yields is the key focus in European morning trade, as the selloff in the bond market continued post-Fed with 10-year yields reaching its highest levels since January last year – nearing 1.75%.

Comments by WHO Europe director, Hans Kluge
The EMA provided an update on Tuesday this week , reiterating what Kluge said above that „the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19, with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death, outweigh the risks of side effects“.

As announced by European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen
Essentially, this is a vaccine passport and is in some ways an organised step forward in trying to standardise things in the region moving forward. She also does note though that the virus situation in Europe is getting worse and a third wave is coming.

10-year yields rise by nearly 4 bps to 1.655%
’sell the rumour, buy the fact‘
As mentioned , there is limited scope for an extended selloff in Treasuries with the rates market already pricing in ~70% odds of a rate hike by December 2022.

The Fed has a fine line to walk today but in all likelihood, it will just reaffirm the status quo in the market in the past few weeks
There are a couple of things we can expect from the Fed today but essentially, Powell & co. will want to try and maintain a more dovish stance

NHK reports on the matter
The Tokyo state of emergency is to run until 21 March but given how the virus situation has been improving, the government is more than likely to lift that this week.

It is going to be all about the bond market today
As much as the Fed wants to walk a tightrope and keep a more dovish tone while not sounding too controlling over recent developments in the bond market, the lack of pushback (once confirmed) is arguably going to be the key takeaway for investors.

Forex news from the European morning session – 16 March 2021
Headlines:
Markets:
– CHF leads, GBP lags on the day
– European equities higher; S&P 500 futures up 0.1%

US chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaks in an interview
This will keep market participants pleased in brushing aside the recent AstraZeneca worries that have been cropping up in Europe. If anything, this also makes clearer the vaccine divergence between the US and Europe – which .