After months of talks, investors cheered the breakthrough, which should help support the economy as Covid-19 hospitalizations are still at record highs.

Yesterday, investors got what they were hoping for from the Fed’s meeting: nothing changed. The benevolence of the Fed is helping to overcome the worries of the moment.

Since they have become key figures in the economic-financial sphere, central bankers don't really have a choice anymore: they have to excel in their communication. It's pretty easy when it comes to reading the press release written by a battalion of experienced underlings. It's more complicated in a press conference, when you have to adapt in real time to complex questions whose answers have tens of billions of dollars in consequences. Jerome Powell generally does quite well and has never made any big mistakes.

Powell therefore confirmed that the Fed's policy will remain very flexible. No one doubted that, but it's better when you say it. The bank has not extended the maturity of its asset buybacks, but let that be the case since the markets have confirmed that liquidity will remain abundant for a while and that the expected return of inflation will be judged over time and not at the time of the peak. Interest rates should therefore remain at the floor for a while (only one of the seventeen FOMC bankers believes that a turn of the screw could occur in 2022). Moreover, the Fed has sought to reassure the public about the sustainability of its measures, even after raising its economic forecasts for 2020 and 2021. The bottom line? Wall Street has reacted little, continuing its ascent overall.

There are still a few hot spots for the end of the year. Brexit, with fishing remaining a stumbling block, but also tech giants who, in addition to being heckled by several countries about their fiscal or commercial practices, are attacking each other on data protection in a rather ironic way. Facebook is criticizing Apple's new personal data collection policy, on the day when several American states are accusing Mark Zuckerberg's group of colluding with Google on the advertising market.

Today on the agenda, we have statements from the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of England, as well as building permits and housing starts, the Philly Fed index and weekly unemployment benefit claims.