Kyodo News reports with the headline
reported
Relative to the US, this doesn’t seem like a big deal but it is all a matter of perception when viewing cases across different countries. For now, this isn’t prompting any major reaction by the government yet but let’s see how things go in the coming days/weeks.

GBPUSD and Brexit talks
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Comments by UK finance minister, Rishi Sunak
– We are past the acute phase of the crisis
– Furlough scheme will last for up to eight months
– We cannot protect every job despite unprecedented action
Sunak is just reaffirming the government’s plans to move forward with the economic reopening, justifying the recent actions from a labour market perspective

The market is still in search of some firm direction in general
European equities began the session with solid gains before seeing almost all of that wiped out after the opening hour of trade, before clawing its way back higher over the past few hours as we look towards North American trading now.

ECB releases the account of its June monetary policy meeting
The ECB hammers home the point that QE and PEPP stimulus measures are proportionate to the conditions at the time, in another salvo at the German constitutional court ruling last month. But apart from that, there isn’t much of anything new really from this.

European equities saw early losses turn to gains before the optimism is slowly fading going into North American trading
The DAX turned around near 1% losses to 1% gains, helped out by the ECB ensuring that there is sufficient liquidity in the market – to non-euro area central banks that is – but gains are slowly

Comments by ECB governing council member, Olli Rehn, to Handelsblatt
Just be aware that the latest development in this space is that the ECB has reportedly submitted some documents to the German judges to prove that its policy measures are ‚proportionate‘ in order to try and settle the dispute.

Comments by WHO European regional director, Hans Henri Kluge
– 11 European countries face a resurgence of the coronavirus
– Cases are accelerating in 30 countries across Europe
The headline is a little unsettling as we are only a week away before Europe starts to open its doors to the rest of the world once again, but then

Latest data released by UK CBI – 25 June 2020
– -50
– Total distributive reported sales -55
– Prior -63
Retail sales balance is seen improving a little in June but remains rather subdued overall but just take note that the sentiment reflected in the survey here is before the announcement by UK PM Johnson to ease

Latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association for the week ending 19 June 2020
–  +8.0%
– Market index 773.1 vs 846.9 prior
– Refinancing index 3,434.66 vs 3,891.5 prior
The drop in the past week largely stems from a fall in refinancing activity but purchases are also seen declining a little after the push to a fresh 11-year