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5 things you need to know today

Switzer Daily
22 February 2021

1. It’s vaccination time for Australians and it will give the economy and stocks a shot in the arm!

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the country’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly were among the first to receive COVID-19 jabs on Sunday, in an attempt to boost public confidence about getting vaccinated, which starts across the country today. But this isn’t just a health matter but is an important economic issue with the PM using the jabs to put pressure on State Premiers to stop snap lockdowns and hard border closures. Lockdowns not only affect freedoms, they hurt businesses and slow down economic growth and job creation. In fact, in the US, where the vaccination process is ahead of us, stocks related to companies that will benefit from vaccinations such as casinos, cruise lines and other leisure related businesses, such as airlines, are seeing their share prices spike.

2. Still time for stock buying

One of the country’s most  well-known fund managers, Chris Stott of 1851 Capital, says he has never been so bullish on stocks. That’s industry lingo for he wants to buy more stocks and doesn’t fear another crash of the market any time soon, despite stocks rising 54% since March 23. That’s huge but we’re still below where the market was before the Coronavirus crashed stocks. In fact, we’re 2.7% below that level and Chris Stott says low interest rates and the great economic data coming out now says the economy will be strong going forward and so stock prices will benefit. If he’s right, our super funds are in for a great year.

3. Facebook’s back and starting negotiations

One day after Facebook banned news content for its Australian users, it started negotiating with News Corp and Nine to make a deal. Last Thursday, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg did the dirty on the country’s Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, slapping a ban on Australians accessing news content on his platform after promising he’d negotiate further and wouldn’t shut Australians out of news on Facebook prematurely. Well, the good news is that they’re back at the negotiating table. The Treasurer says talks continued over the weekend, while Google is now having talks with the ABC to do a deal.The problem for the likes of Google and Facebook is that if they do a deal with us, the other governments of the world will want a deal too, and that’s why these companies have been resisting paying for the content they use. However Google is playing fairer, making deals with the likes of Nine and News Corp, while Facebook has been behaving like something that should be really renamed Fakebook.

4. New record for opening cans with mouth

Chuck Mady from Ontario, Canada has broken the record for most drink cans opened in one minute using only his mouth. Mady managed to open 24 cans to set a new Guinness World Record, but said he could potentially open up to ten more to set a new record in the future.

5. Mixed week for stocks

Last week on Wall Street, the Dow Jones managed to rise 0.11% for the week to 31,494.32. There were weekly losses for both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, falling 0.71% to 3,906.71 and 1.57% to 13,874.46, respectively. The S&P/ASX 200 was also down for the week after a 92.10 point or 1.34% drop on Friday, closing 0.19% lower for the week.

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