Updated at 2/10/2021, 10:15:34 AM BST
Claire Bushey in Chicago
General Motors said on Wednesday that the global shortage of semiconductors would have a short-term impact on the company’s earnings and cash this year, even as it reported profits for 2020.
A day earlier the Detroit automaker said production at three plants it idled this week would remain suspended until mid-March. The auto industry has been rocked by a shortage of semiconductors, which are used throughout vehicles, from power steering to brakes.
GM said it planned to make up as much of the lost production as possible, including by building incomplete vehicles and finishing them when chips become available.
GM reported fourth-quarter net income that rose 3 per cent to $2.8bn as revenue rose nearly 7 per cent to $38bn. For 2020, it reported net income of $6.4bn—about the same as 2019—on revenue that fell 15 per cent to $123bn.
Chief executive Mary Barra said the company’s “strong” financial performance “was remarkable by any measure”, but particularly so in a year where the Covid-19 pandemic caused GM and other auto manufacturers to idle production for about two months.
Matthew Rocco
Coca-Cola’s sales dropped 5 per cent in the final quarter of 2020, as a resurgence of coronavirus cases prompted renewed curbs on restaurants and bars.
However, sales fell less steeply than they did earlier in the year, and Coca-Cola reinstated its financial guidance with consumer trends having improved from the worst of the coronavirus crisis.
Coca-Cola’s revenues were dragged down last year by the closure of restaurants, bars and other venues, which normally account for about half of its annual sales. Governments around the world tightened restrictions on business and social activity in response to a surge in infections after the summer.
Coca-Cola said it felt “incremental pressure in December and into the early part of this year” amid the coronavirus resurgence. It recorded a volume decline in the mid-single digits globally until early February, as pressure on away-from-home sales outweighed stronger demand for drinks consumed at home.
Net revenues fell 5 per cent year on year to $8.6bn in the fourth quarter of 2020, roughly in line with analysts’ expectations. That followed a 9 per cent sales decline in the third quarter.
Coca-Cola said last year it would eliminate about 200 of its lesser-known drink brands, accelerating a reorganisation in response to the pandemic. In December, the Atlanta-based company said it would cut 2,200 jobs globally, including 1,200 positions in the US.
The company’s shares rose 2 per cent in pre-market trading on Wednesday.
Harry Dempsey
Mexico has become the first country outside China to approve CanSino Biologics’ vaccine, making it the third Chinese-developed jab to get the go-ahead overseas.
Authorities in Mexico have authorised its emergency use in over 18s, according to a regulatory filing from the Hong Kong-listed company on Wednesday.
It comes a day after Pakistan’s health minister disclosed positive results of late stage trials held in multiple countries, including Mexico. CanSino’s vaccine had shown 66 per cent efficacy in preventing symptomatic illness from Covid-19 and just over 90 per cent efficacy in stopping severe disease.
The jab from the Tianjin-based group, which developed the vaccine jointly with researchers from the People’s Liberation Army, holds particular promise for developing countries.
The trial was based on a single dose course, meaning fewer shots would need to be distributed. Other vaccines, including from BioNTech/Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca, require double doses.
Furthermore, supplies do not need to be stored at ultra-cold temperatures, making the vaccine easier to roll out in countries without the necessary infrastructure.
However, concerns linger about the lack of transparency of Chinese vaccine makers, which have not publicly released full data from clinical trials.
The Financial Times has been your guide to the pandemic since the first outbreak was detected over a year ago. Here are some of the developments we were reporting on a year ago today:
• Britain declared the outbreak of coronavirus a “serious and imminent threat to public health”, in a move that gave the government expanded powers to contain the disease.
• Four more patients in England tested positive, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to eight.
• Nissan suspended production at a Japanese plant due to a shortage in car components, deepening the turmoil in global supply chains.
• Taiwan barred Hong Kong and Macau citizens from entry in response to the spread of infections in southern China.
• The World Health Organization said instances of onward transmission from people with no travel history to China were “concerning”, saying that these cases could be the “spark that becomes a bigger fire”.
• US stocks advanced to record highs, maintaining momentum after notching their best week since the summer.
FT columnist Pilita Clark told readers to work at home if you can, but don’t expect it to be paradise.
For all the latest on the pandemic, visit the FT’s coronavirus home page.
Sam Fleming and Michael Peel in Brussels
The European Commission president acknowledged mistakes in the EU’s coronavirus vaccine strategy, but warned that failing to pursue a collective approach could have torn the union apart by pitting big member states against smaller ones.
Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that the EU had been too late to approve some Covid-19 shots, too optimistic when it came to vaccine production capacity, and perhaps too confident that doses would be delivered on time.
She added that “mistakes were made”, which she deeply regretted, when it came to the introduction of export restrictions that had adverse implications for Northern Ireland last month. The measures were rapidly withdrawn.
But the commission chief urged the bloc to stick with its current strategy. “I cannot even imagine what would have happened if a handful of big member states had rushed to it and everyone else would have been left empty-handed, what it would have meant for our internal market and the unity of Europe,” she said in Brussels. “In economic terms it would have been nonsense, and it would have been, I think, the end of our community.”
Von der Leyen and national capitals are under intense pressure to find ways of accelerating the rollout of the EU’s vaccination programme as a slower authorisation process and production shortfalls leave the bloc trailing behind other major economies when it comes to the pace of immunisation.
The EU has given 3.9 vaccine doses per 100 residents compared with 12.8 in the US and 19.2 in the UK, according to data compiled by the Financial Times.
Read more here.
Primrose Riordan
Hong Kong authorities said they expected to relax social distancing measures from Thursday next week as case numbers declined in the city.
The local government has generally been praised for controlling the virus, despite accusations of inconsistent application of social distancing rules, but the city has been grappling with a persistent fourth wave.
Residents are currently restricted to public gatherings of just two people with food venues closing for eat-in services from 6pm. But after February 18 if cases remain under control, four people could be permitted to sit at a table together, local media reported, and restaurants could open until 10pm.
Were the plan to go ahead, gyms and beauty parlors would also reopen. Hong Kong reported 17 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.
Sarah Provan
The last Elfstedentocht tour took place in 1997
Europe’s plummeting temperatures this week have prodded the Dutch into hoping a rare 200km speed skating event will take place, even as strict coronavirus measures make it unlikely.
Temperatures as low as -20C, with promises of “a few nice skating days ahead”, are forecast. The Netherlands this week issued its first “code red” nationwide weather alert in nine years and recorded its coldest night since 2013, while the weekend’s heavy snows and high winds closed a number of coronavirus testing and vaccination centres.
Such a forecast though is likely to whip the Dutch into a frenzy of longing for Elfstedentocht, which literally means “eleven cities tour” and is a circular skating race that starts in Leeuwarden and links the frozen canals, ditches and lakes of 11 cities in the north of the country. Recently #Elfstedentocht2021 has shot to the top of what’s trending on Twitter.
The ice has to be at least 15cm thick on the entire 200km route but conditions have not met the criteria since 1997 when hundreds of thousands gathered to watch more than 16,000 skaters.
A few days of sub-zero temperatures, however, are enough to stoke speculation that the event will take place.
But even if it gets cold enough, coronavirus measures will mean the race cannot go ahead.
The outgoing prime minister Mark Rutte this week extended a 9pm to 4:30am curfew until March 3 as concern mounts over new variants of coronavirus even as infections are falling. Secondary schools are shut until at least March 1, while non-essential shops, bars and restaurants are also closed, giving the event a slim chance of getting the green light even if freezing cold weather persists.
Joseph Cotterill
South Africa could sell or swap its supplies of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine if it does not start using them again soon after the country paused its rollout of the jab following the results of a clinical trial, its health minister has said.
Zweli Mkhize said on Wednesday that scientists could give a view within weeks over whether and how to use the vaccine. South Africa put plans to issue 1.5m doses to frontline health workers on hold this month and is instead arranging to use Johnson & Johnson’s jab for the initial phase.
The country decided on the pause after a study found that the vaccine provided little protection against mild and moderate disease with a coronavirus variant that is dominant in the country.
The study did not assess the effects on severe disease with the variant, however, and AstraZeneca has said that it is confident its vaccine is highly effective at preventing serious illness and death.
South Africa’s AstraZeneca pause affects doses that were delivered this month from the Serum Institute of India, a vaccine manufacturer. The doses are due to expire in April, by which time they were originally meant to have been used up in the first phase of the rollout.
“Our scientists will continue with further deliberations on the AstraZeneca vaccine use in South Africa, and depending on their advice, the vaccine will be swapped before the expiry date,” Mkhize said. South Africa would also consider selling the doses to other countries, he added.
Results for Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine have shown strong protection against severe disease with the 501.V2 variant, which was first found in South Africa. Deliveries to the country are expected within days.
The country had already ordered 9m J&J doses and 20m from Pfizer before the AstraZeneca pause.
South Africa is also in advanced stages of evaluating Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and is negotiating over an offer made by China for access to its Sinopharm jab, Mr Mkhize said.
Alistair Gray
Packaging group Smurfit Kappa and retailer Dunelm have become the latest London-listed companies to bolster payouts to shareholders after they both profited from the pandemic-induced surge in e-commerce.
Dunelm reinstated its regular dividend, declaring an interim payment of 12p a share, after pre-tax profits in the six months to December rose more than a third year-on-year to £112m. The purveyor of rugs, decor and furniture has benefited from the trend for consumers spending more time at home to improve their properties.
The Leicestershire-based company’s stores were forced to close in the final two months of the period, but customers instead ordered homewares from its website. Digital sales in the first half more than doubled to account for more than a third of total sales, which increased 23 per cent to £719m.
Online shopping in the run up to Christmas also helped Dublin-based Smurfit Kappa. While full-year revenues declined 6 per cent to €8.53bn, the company said demand had accelerated in the second half, “with a particularly strong fourth quarter”. Annual pre-tax profit rose a tenth to €748m.
“The continued development of e-commerce and the increasing demand for sustainable, paper-based packaging continue to present opportunities,” it said.
Smurfit Kappa, which according to AJ Bell was the first FTSE 100 company to restore dividend payments last year, increased its final payment 8 per cent to 87.4c a share.
Shares in Smurfit Kappa rose 1.6 per cent to 3,598p, while Dunelm was up 3.5 per cent to 1,305p.
Naomi Rovnick
Global shares hit a new record high on Wednesday, with sentiment boosted by optimism about the latest data on the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines.
The FTSE World index gained 0.3 per cent to set a new all-time high, driven by gains in Asia. China’s CSI 300 rose 2.1 per cent, taking its gain for the week to almost 6 per cent — which, if sustained, would be the benchmark’s best week since July 2020.
In Europe, the regional Stoxx 600 benchmark crept 0.2 per cent higher in early trading, while the UK’s FTSE 100 rose a similar amount.
“The recovery and reopening narrative is so strong,” said Kasper Elmgreen, head of equities at European fund manager Amundi. “It is very hard to beat down.”
Stocks were lifted by official UK data, first reported in The Sun newspaper, that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine offered two-thirds protection after the first shot.
“These results will make a huge impact if confirmed and sustained,” commented Deutsche Bank investment strategist Jim Reid.
Oil markets were steady at $61 at barrel, holding at their highest levels since the early weeks of the pandemic.
Read more here.
Edward White and Kang Buseong in Seoul
South Korea has authorised the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for use in all adults despite health authorities’ concern over the efficacy of the jabs in older people.
Kim Gang-lip, the vice health minister, said the government would take a precautionary approach to inoculating people over the age of 65. The approval is also contingent on AstraZeneca submitting further data from its latest clinical trials.
Seoul’s first vaccine approval comes amid doubts raised in several European countries over the vaccine’s use in older people as well as its effectiveness against coronavirus variants.
South Korea has an ambitious vaccination roll out plan starting on February 26. Fifty thousand frontline coronavirus workers are scheduled to receive Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs in the coming weeks before officials move on to around 780,000 first responders, contact tracers and residents and workers at care facilities for elderly people.
The country is is attempting to inoculate 70 per cent of its 52m population by September.
Harry Dempsey
Transport secretary Grant Shapps has defended the UK’s new hotel quarantine policy for arrivals from high-risk countries, saying that there was a risk from new variants of the virus.
Shapps said on Wednesday that the regime was necessary to prevent virus mutations from entering the country even if Covid-19 case numbers were seemingly under control.
“It’s not about the prevalence of the virus”, he said on Sky News, referring to the original criteria of case numbers for determining whether to adopt tight border controls against certain countries. “Now it’s about the variants and that’s the thing that we’re tracking.”
His comments came a day after ministers announced a tough new quarantine regime, including a maximum 10-year jail penalty for arrivals to England from high-risk countries who refuse to go to a quarantine-designated hotel.
However, the opposition Labour party has questioned why it has taken until now to adopt stricter border measures amid broader concerns about the logistics of the hotel quarantine programme.
Shapps said that 5,000 hotel rooms were “available immediately”.
On a separate interview on BBC Breakfast, he said that about 1,300 people a day were arriving from so-called red list countries and he expected the numbers to “fall much further still” as a result of the tougher measures.
Shapps also said that 13.1m people in the UK had now received a Covid-19 vaccine dose but raised the concern that variants would undermine the fast pace of the rollout. “With variants, we cannot risk it in these final stages when we’ve got the vaccine rolled out that we might end up with difficulty from variants,” he said.
Richard Milne, Nordic and Baltic Correspondent
A strong rebound in demand after initial Covid-19 lockdowns and sky-high freight rates led AP Moller-Maersk to almost double its fourth-quarter profits and the world’s largest container shipping line forecast 2021 would be even better.
The Danish group’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) rose 85 per cent to $2.7bn in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier. Revenues increased 16 per cent to $11.3bn.
Maersk said it expected underlying ebitda this year to be between $8.5bn and $10.5bn, above the $8.3bn recorded in 2020, and that the first quarter of 2021 would be stronger than the previous three months.
The container shipping and logistics group has benefited from surging freight rates caused by a big jump in demand after the first wave of lockdowns led to an absence of containers.
Ebitda at Maersk’s core oceans business doubled to $2.2bn in the fourth quarter while revenues increased 16 per cent to $8.3bn. Maersk said it had struggled to ensure reliability during the fourth quarter with disruptions to many shippers’ supply chains. It added that the strongest growth this year would be in the first half of the year.
“Ocean performed at [a] record level in the quarter as a consequence of the strong rebound of demand which led to full capacity utilisation but also to bottlenecks, higher costs and difficulties in meeting our customer reliability promises,” said Soren Skou, Maersk’s chief executive.
David Kerstens, analyst at Jefferies, noted that Maersk’s fourth-quarter earnings were about 10 per cent below consensus estimates while its guidance for this year only just covered the average analyst expectation of $10.5bn in ebitda.
David Keohane in Paris
Société Générale fell to its first full year loss in decades in 2020, heaping pressure on its long-serving chief executive, but there were signs of a continuing recovery in the fourth quarter as the French bank’s profits beat expectations.
The banking sector has been hammered by the impact of Covid-19 and low interest rates, but SocGen is under particular pressure. Its share price is down 42 per cent over the past year and the bank has been trading at a price to book ratio of around 0.25, the lowest of any big European bank.
Last year, impairment charges pushed the bank to a loss of €258m, the first full year loss it has suffered since at least 1987, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
However, after returning to profit in the third quarter, the bank reported net income of €470m in the fourth quarter, a drop of 28 per cent compared to the same period last year but beating analyst expectations. Profits were helped by a fall in the bank’s of cost of risk — reflecting provisions for potentially bad loans — which rose 86 per cent in the quarter to €689m, but were lower than analysts expected.
Like its cross town rival BNP Paribas, SocGen said it expects provisions to fall this year.
Revenues came in at €5.8bn in the fourth quarter, down 6 per cent but also slightly ahead of expectations.
Judith Evans
Heineken is to cut 8,000 jobs and seek €2bn of savings over two years as new chief executive Dolf van den Brink reshapes the world’s second-largest brewer amid a pandemic that has dealt the drinks industry its worst blow in decades.
Van den Brink, who took charge in April last year, said on Wednesday he would slash almost 10 per cent of the Dutch brewer’s 85,000 staff as part of a programme to restore margins and increase productivity.
The plans follow Heineken swinging to a loss for 2020. The brewer of Amstel, Tiger and Moretti reported a net loss of €204m for the year, down from €2.2bn profit a year earlier, after the closures of pubs and bars in the pandemic pushed revenues down 17 per cent to €23.8bn.
The job cuts include a reduction of about 20 per cent in personnel costs in Heineken’s head office, with those lay-offs to be completed by the end of the first quarter.
The €2bn of savings by 2023 would enable the group to restore its marketing spend, invest in technology and mitigate inflation and currency costs, it said.
Read more here
Josephine Cumbo in London
Four out of 10 UK financial advisers offering transfer advice on defined benefit pensions have raised their fees since 2018, according to a wide-ranging survey commissioned by the Financial Times.
Since 2015, savers wanting to transfer a defined benefit, or final salary-style, pension to a more flexible personal pension arrangement must first obtain advice from a regulated adviser if their fund is worth £30,000 or more.
It has become more difficult for savers to meet this requirement after many advisers stopped offering transfer advice due to soaring liability insurance premiums. The Personal Finance Society said many advisers were reducing costs elsewhere, such as on travel during the pandemic.
Read more here
Derek Brower in London
Chesapeake Energy, the highest-profile casualty of the turmoil that swept through the US shale industry last year, emerged from bankruptcy on Tuesday, vowing that an era of debt-fuelled supply growth was over.
The company’s Chapter 11 filing in June was a milestone of the pandemic-induced oil crash, as a spearhead of the shale revolution collapsed under a mountain of liabilities accrued during years of rampant spending and expansion.
Its re-emergence coincides with a 12-month high in oil prices and signals the start of a new chapter for the shale business, as operators pledge to prioritise shareholder returns, not supply growth.
Read more here
George Russell in Hong Kong
Some coronaviruses can jump directly to people from bats without an intermediate animal host, research published in the US on Tuesday shows.
Researchers implanted mice with human lung tissue and infected the tissue with three coronaviruses isolated from bats, including Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
All of the viruses could efficiently multiply in the lung tissue, Angela Wahl, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Medicine, and her colleagues found.
“Virus replication in this model occurs in bona fide human lung tissue and does not require any type of adaptation of the virus or the host,” the team wrote in Nature, the US journal.
The researchers also found that an oral antiviral drug could significantly reduce infectious particles of Sars-CoV-2 in lung tissue.
“EIDD-2801, an oral broad spectrum antiviral currently in clinical trials, dramatically inhibited Sars-CoV-2 replication,” they wrote.
Robin Harding in Tokyo
When the coronavirus pandemic began last year, Japan’s suicide prevention specialists were most concerned about vulnerable retirees and the group that historically accounts for the country’s high suicide rate: middle-aged men suffering job loss or business failure.
But instead, according to official data, there was a concerning rise in deaths by suicide among young and middle-aged women. That has prompted a scramble to understand why, amid concerns that Japan’s support systems are failing those who need help.
After years of decline since the economic crises of the 1990s, suicides in Japan rose in 2020 to 20,919 from 20,169 the previous year. But while the suicide rate among men was basically static, among women it rose 15 per cent — from 6,091 to 6,976.
Read more here
Alice Hancock in London
Pub sales plummeted by more than half in the UK last year as closures and social distancing restrictions hit trading, the sector’s biggest trade body has said.
The British Beer and Pub Association, which represents the UK’s 47,000 pubs, said on Wednesday that sales across the pub industry fell by £7.8bn in 2020 — 56 per cent below 2019’s levels.
In the final quarter of the year, despite some pubs being open and able to trade, restrictions and curfews caused sales to drop 77 per cent compared to the year before.
The stark figures came as industry executives called on the government to offer a timeframe and plan for the reopening of pubs after the current lockdown.
“After nearly a whole year under forced closure, or open but under severe restrictions, pub trade has been decimated,” said Philip Whitehead, chairman of the BBPA.
A bar staff member pulls a pint in Wetherspoons in Leigh, north-west England
Nick Mackenzie, chief executive of Greene King, one of the UK’s largest operators with 2,700 pubs, said that “2020 was a write-off for pubs and the industry needs a clear plan for reopening as soon as it is safe to do so, without complex and unjustified restrictions which would make it unviable to open.”
He called on the government to “urgently” provide financial support to pub businesses as many faced closure without further funding.
Figures from the industry data firm CGA showed that around 6,000 licensed venues closed during 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
The BBPA said that during the current lockdown, which started in early January, the sector was incurring costs of more than £100m a month with pubs closed. It has called for an extension to the business rates holiday and reduction in VAT as well as a cut to beer duty.
Kana Inagaki in Tokyo
Toyota has raised its annual profit guidance by 54 per cent despite a global chip shortage as a post-Covid 19 sales rebound catapulted the Japanese group to become the world’s largest carmaker.
Shares briefly rose 3.2 per cent to their highest level since the summer of 2015 as strong sales in China and the US lifted profits in the final quarter of 2020 far above expectations.
For the fiscal year through March, Toyota said it now expects an operating profit of ¥2tn ($19bn) compared to ¥1.3tn projected in November, helped also by cost-cutting efforts. It also raised its annual vehicle sales target by 3.3 per cent.
The raise for the second time in three months came even as rivals worldwide have cut their vehicle sales targets due to a semiconductor shortage that was sparked by the sudden rebound in car sales towards the end of last year.
For the October to December quarter, Toyota said its operating profit rose 54 per cent from a year earlier to ¥987.9bn, exceeding analysts’ forecasts of ¥566.6bn, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Vehicle sales improved across most of its key markets, with sales rising 22 per cent in China, 12 per cent in North America and 15 per cent in Europe.
Madison Marriage in London
KPMG UK chairman Bill Michael has apologised after telling consultants to “stop moaning” during a discussion about the impact of the pandemic on their working lives.
In a virtual town hall meeting on Monday, members of the 1,500-strong financial services consulting team told Michael of their concern about potential cuts to their pension contributions, pay and bonuses, according to a senior employee.
They also raised an issue about KPMG measuring staff performance against a “forced distribution curve”, where individuals within a team are ranked from best to worst.
Read more here
George Russell in Hong Kong
Singapore will from Wednesday loosen entry requirements for arrivals who have visited the Australian state of New South Wales, while tightening the border for visitors from Vietnam.
From Wednesday, Singapore citizens, permanent residents and long-term work pass holders returning from NSW must undergo a Covid-19 test on arrival.
“If the result is negative, they will be allowed to go about their activities in Singapore,” the health ministry said in a statement.
Intending short-term visitors travelling from NSW must apply for an air travel pass before departure. They will also undergo a test on arrival.
Passengers with a travel history to Vietnam within 14 days prior to departure for Singapore, will be subject to an on-arrival test, 14-day isolation at dedicated facilities, and another test before the end of the quarantine period.
Short-term visitors with a Vietnam history in the previous two weeks will not be granted entry to Singapore, even if they have an air travel pass.
A medical worker administers a dose of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine at the Imam Khomeini hospital in Tehran on Tuesday
George Russell in Hong Kong
Russia’s sovereign wealth fund said on Tuesday its application for approval for the Sputnik V vaccine in the EU had been accepted by the bloc’s medical regulator.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund said it submitted a registration application on January 29, launching the approval process.
RDIF is the major investor in the vaccine, which was developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow.
Initial scientific consultations with the European Medicines Agency have been held, the fund’s representative told reporters.
The Russian vaccine’s international reputation has grown after initial scepticism over data and safety.
“The trial results show a consistent strong protective effect across all participant age groups,” a study in The Lancet said.
George Russell in Hong Kong
The US drug regulator on Tuesday authorised Eli Lilly & Co’s Covid-19 cocktail for emergency use on mild to moderate cases that are likely to worsen.
The combination of bamlanivimab and etesevimab would be administered as a single intravenous infusion as soon as possible after a positive test and within 10 days of symptom onset, the drugmaker said in a statement.
Lilly said it had made more than 250,000 doses in the first quarter of 2021 and expected output of 1m doses by June 30.
“Bamlanivimab alone under emergency use authorisation has already provided many people with an early treatment option that could prevent hospitalisations,” said Dr Daniel Skovronsky, Lilly’s chief scientific officer.
The Food and Drug Administration authorised infusion times for bamlanivimab as short as 16 minutes, and bamlanivimab and etesevimab together for as short as 21 minutes.
The previous recommendation was 60 minutes, but Lilly said feedback from front-line nurses and doctors administering the infusions prompted reductions.
The FDA authorisation is based on phase 3 data, which demonstrated bamlanivimab and etesevimab together reduced the risk of Covid-19 hospitalisations and death by 70 per cent.
George Russell in Hong Kong
The US vaccine tsar said on Tuesday that weekly deliveries of jabs would soon rise to 11m a week, up from 8.6m when Joe Biden took office as president.
Jeffrey Zients, the White House Covid-19 coordinator, said vaccinations would be expanded to include community health centres.
“I know Americans are eager to get vaccinated, and we’re working with manufacturers to increase the supply of vaccines as quickly as possible,” Zients told a White House briefing.
He did not offer a target date for the 28 per cent increase in vaccine supply.
As supply ramps up, Zients added, vaccines would be sent directly to local clinics.
“Community health centers are an important part of our broader strategy to ensure we are reaching everyone with our response,” he said.
Edward White and Kang Buseong in Seoul
South Korea’s unemployment rate has hit its worst level in two decades as Asia’s fourth-biggest economy struggles with a two-track recovery from the depths of the coronavirus pandemic.
Statistics Korea reported that January had the steepest year-on-year fall in employment since 1999 when the economy was hit by the fallout from the Asian financial crisis.
While South Korea’s tech exports have staged a strong recovery over recent months, the country’s services sector has been hit by a third virus wave since December, with job losses most acute among temporary workers.
That pushed the unemployment rate to 5.4 per cent from 4.6 per cent, and was worse than forecasts of around 4.5 per cent from economists polled by Bloomberg.
Volunteers take part in a vaccination drill in Seoul
The data come as much of the country remains under strict social distancing rules ahead of the country’s Seollal, or new year, holidays. The daily rate of new coronavirus cases hit a six-day high at 444 on Wednesday.
Health officials are moving closer to launching a nationwide coronavirus vaccine programme this month, amid concerns that South Korea’s rollout has fallen behind that of other countries.
Seoul, which won international praise for its comparatively strong handling of the pandemic, is attempting to inoculate 70 per cent of its 52m people by September.
Thomas Hale in Hong Kong
China’s factory gate prices rose for the first time in a year, in the latest positive sign to emerge from the country’s rapid recovery from the pandemic.
The producer price index added 0.3 per cent year-on-year last month, after posting declines in each month since January 2020 when the first major coronavirus outbreak occurred in China.
While the increase is a sign of improved economic activity, it contrasted with continued weakness in consumer price inflation, which fell into negative territory for the second time in several months.
Consumer prices dropped 0.3 per cent year on year. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, also turned negative.
Economists at Capital Economics said the CPI figure was driven by “base effects” and added that “price pressures are likely to pick up further in the coming quarters”.
Stefania Palma in Singapore
Malaysia’s health ministry has advised Supermax, a local medical glove maker, to temporarily shut down a manufacturing facility for three days after several factory workers tested positive for coronavirus.
The facilities in Meru, a town in the Malaysian state of Selangor, will close from Wednesday to Friday, Supermax said in an exchange filing on Tuesday.
The company said it had implemented safety measures including social distancing, regular sanitisation and temperature checks on its premises and in the workers’ hostels.
The closure comes after Malaysia’s Top Glove, the world’s largest rubber glove manufacturer, temporarily stopped production at manufacturing facilities in Meru in November 2020 after a Covid-19 outbreak among its workers.
George Russell in Hong Kong
Singapore Airlines said on Tuesday it had reached agreements with Airbus and Boeing to defer $4bn in aircraft purchases, helping the south-east Asian carrier to “navigate the disruptions” caused by the pandemic.
Aeroplanes in SIA Group’s order book would be delivered over a longer period than originally contracted, which would also “recalibrate the rate of introduction of capacity”, the airline said.
The group said it had changed its order of 14 Boeing 787-10 aircraft into 11 Boeing 777-9 jets.
“The agreements with Airbus and Boeing are a key plank of our strategy to navigate the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Goh Choon Phong, Singapore Airlines chief executive.
The SIA Group includes regional carrier SilkAir and budget brand Scoot.
Dave Lee in San Francisco
Shares in rideshare service Lyft, Uber’s biggest rival in North America, were up by more than 10 per cent in after hours trading, following better than anticipated revenue in the fourth quarter and a positive outlook on its post-pandemic business.
Still, the Covid-19 downtown has taken its toll on Lyft which, unlike Uber, does not have a food delivery platform to offset the losses from the collapse in rideshare demand.
At $570m, revenue for 2020’s fourth quarter was 44 per cent lower than the same period in 2019. Overall, revenue for 2020 versus 2019 was down by 35 per cent.
The company reported having fewer overall active riders than Wall Street had been hoping for — 12.6m versus a consensus estimate of 13.2m.
But executives said it was making more money per rider than it had ever done previously, with each rider spending an average of $45.40 during the quarter — up a dollar from 2019.
A masked traveller passes a Lyft sign at Los Angeles International Airport
That seemingly small increase bodes well, Lyft said, for its aim of turning an adjusted profit in this year’s third quarter — though it is banking on people travelling again.
The company also said it was able to reduce fixed costs last year by $320m.
In a distinct tangent from the here-and-now challenge of the pandemic, Lyft executives also took time on an earnings call to boast of their progress on self-driving cars.
More than 100,000 autonomous trips, with safety drivers, had taken place via Lyft’s platform, the company said, adding it felt the work in this area would create a “competitive moat”.
The comments come after Uber’s decision to sell off its autonomous driving division, ATG, to self-driving specialists Aurora in December.
Uber reports its results after the closing bell on Wednesday.
George Russell in Hong Kong
The confidence of US small businesses continues to fall, according to an index released on Tuesday.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses said its optimism index fell in January to 95.0, down 0.9 points from December and three points below the 47-year average of 98.
The proportion of owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months declined seven points to a net minus 23 per cent, the lowest level since November 2013.
“As Congress debates another stimulus package, small employers welcome any additional relief,” said Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB chief economist.
The NFIB said its member firms increased employment by 0.36 workers per firm, up from 0.30 in December, but said hiring was uneven geographically and by industry.
“The pandemic continues to dictate how small businesses operate and owners are worried about future business conditions and sales,” Dunkelberg said.
Alice Woodhouse in Hong Kong
Health authorities have closed a quarantine hotel in Melbourne after two staff members tested positive for the virus, as Victoria’s state leader warned of the risk posed by new virus variants.
The Holiday Inn Melbourne Airport has been closed for cleaning and guests have been moved to alternative hotels, Daniel Andrews, Victoria’s premier, said on Wednesday.
“[The virus] is not a static enemy, it is wicked and it is changing and that means that we have to redouble our efforts to do more and respond to that unique challenge, a challenge that is very different to what it was a month ago, let alone three or six months ago,” Andrews said.
The two workers are thought to have contracted the virus while at work.
Officials are concerned after staff and other guests staying in quarantine hotels in Australia and New Zealand have been infected by new coronavirus variants in recent weeks.
More than 300,000 people have undergone hotel quarantine in the two countries after returning from overseas in efforts to prevent a resurgence in community outbreaks.
Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus wears a face mask before her second-round Australian Open match in Melbourne against Daria Kasatkina of Russia on Wednesday
Describing the state’s hotel quarantine procedures as the “most risk-averse, most labour-intensive”, Andrews warned that “hyper-infectious strains” were more challenging to control.
“We’re ripping up carpet, for heaven’s sake, and replacing it with vinyl in a whole range of common areas. We test everybody everyday, we test them on their days off… and still, this wicked and changing enemy can be a step ahead of you,” he said.
Workers in hotel quarantine are not permitted to take second jobs and the state does not contract out the jobs in efforts to minimise the risk to the community.
Andrews said the state has “no tolerance for risk” and Victoria will not increase its cap on quarantine arrivals as planned next week until it has better understood the situation.
Anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes at the hotel from January 27 to February 9 would be required to isolate for 14 days, Andrews said.
Peter Wells in New York
The number of US coronavirus hospitalisations has dropped below 80,000 for the first time since mid-November.
There were 79,179 people in US hospitals with coronavirus, according to Covid Tracking Project data released on Tuesday, down from 80,055 on Monday.
It was the first time since November 18 that hospitalisations have been below 80,000. Hospitalisations are down about 40 per cent from the country’s peak in early January.
Sustained downward trends for hospital patients are evident in almost every US state, according to a Financial Times analysis of CTP data.
States reported an additional 92,986 infections, up from a three-month low on Monday of 77,737.
Including Sunday’s tally of 95,994 infections — the first time since November 2 that new cases were below 100,000 — Tuesday marked the first time since late October that new cases have been below that threshold for three days in a row.
Authorities attributed a further 2,795 fatalities to coronavirus, up from Monday’s two-month low of 1,309.
Trader Samantha Tavares, right, works with colleagues on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
Alice Woodhouse in Hong Kong
Asia-Pacific stocks were mixed in early trading on Thursday after a global rally lost steam.
In Japan the Topix fell 0.3 per cent, the Kospi in South Korea rose 0.1 per cent and the S&P/ASX 200 nudged up 0.2 per cent.
Those moves came after the S&P 500 ended down 0.1 per cent in the US on Tuesday, breaking a six-day run of gains.
Investors are awaiting the passage of President Joe Biden’s stimulus package.
S&P 500 futures were up 0.1 per cent.
George Russell in Hong Kong
New Zealand’s central bank on Tuesday said it would restore most loan-to-value ratio restrictions on March 1, to reduce dangers caused by high-risk mortgage lending.
The LVR restrictions were removed to ensure they did not interfere with Covid-19 policy responses aimed at promoting cash flow and confidence, said Geoff Bascand, Reserve Bank of New Zealand deputy governor.
“Since then, in part due to the success of the health and economic policy responses, we have witnessed a rapid acceleration in the housing market, with new records being set for the national median price, and new mortgage lending continuing at a strong pace.”
He said the main concern now was the risk of a sharp correction in the housing market. “There is evidence of a speculative dynamic emerging with many buyers becoming highly leveraged,” Bascand said.
“A growing number of highly indebted borrowers, especially investors, are now financially vulnerable to house price corrections and disruptions to their ability to service the debt,” he added.
From March 21, LVR restrictions for owner-occupiers will be reinstated to a maximum of 20 per cent of new lending. Restrictions for investors will be reinstated to a maximum of 5 per cent of new lending.
The restrictions do not apply to new residential construction.
Andres Schipani in Nairobi
Fitch on Tuesday slashed Ethiopia’s rating after the country asked for debt relief as the coronavirus pandemic hit its economy.
The ratings agency downgraded the country by two notches, to triple C from B. Earlier this month, Ethiopia asked for relief under a G20 programme agreed by the world’s biggest economies.
“The downgrade reflects the government’s announcement that it is looking to make use of the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments beyond the Debt Service Suspension Initiative,” Fitch said in a statement.
“[This] explicitly raises the risk of a default event,” the agency added.
George Russell in Hong Kong
Johannesburg-listed AngloGold Ashanti said on Tuesday its production of the precious metal in 2020 would fall 7 per cent, largely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The miner estimates last year’s output at 3.05m ounces, down from 3.28m in 2019.
AngloGold Ashanti forecast headline earnings between $962m and $1.04bn for full-year 2020, up from $379m in 2019.
The company attributed the projected increase in earnings to improved gold prices, higher income from joint ventures, as well as weaker local currencies. It will release its full-year results on February 22.
“AngloGold Ashanti delivered a solid production performance for the year, taking into consideration the challenges created by the pandemic,” said Kelvin Dushnisky, chief executive.
Melody Ellison dolls are displayed in the window of an American Girl Place store, a retail chain owned by Mattel
Matthew Rocco in New York
Surging demand for toys lifted Mattel to its biggest holiday sales in four years, as shoppers scooped up Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars to entertain kids stuck at home because of the pandemic.
Ynon Kreiz, chief executive, said the results highlighted strength across the group’s toy catalogue with Mattel gaining market share in the last two quarters and the full year, aided by both the pandemic-driven jump in sales and a multi-year turnround effort.
“We regard it as our best performance in years, but it’s not a one-off,” he said of the company’s fourth-quarter performance.
With children spending more time at home, the coronavirus pandemic has fuelled a resurgence in demand for toys and games, which have faced stiff competition from video games and streaming video in the battle for kids’ attention.
Mattel ended 2020 with its two biggest increases in quarterly sales in nearly a decade. Its rival Hasbro, which sells Star Wars action figures and Monopoly board games, also reported stronger sales in the three months to the end of December.
Mattel’s Barbie and American Girl dolls were popular items in the Christmas period, as were Hot Wheels, Uno cards, Star Wars plush toys and Mega building sets.
Overall, fourth-quarter net sales jumped 10 per cent to $1.63bn, with demand in North America accelerating faster than the company’s international business. Analysts had projected a smaller gain to $1.58bn.
Hannah Murphy in San Francisco
Twitter’s user growth fell short of expectations for the second quarter in a row and it warned that the pace of growth would slow in 2021 as a pandemic-related boost wears off.
The San Francisco-based social media company said that revenues in its fourth quarter rose 28 per cent year-on-year to $1.3bn, beating analyst consensus of $1.2bn, which it attributed to the rollout of new advertising formats and targeting capabilities for brands.
Net income rose to $222m, with diluted earnings of 27 cents a share.
However, average monetisable daily active users — a homegrown metric that counts the number of logged-in users to whom the platform shows advertising — reached only 192m, a 27 per cent increase year-on-year. Wall Street had expected that to reach 194m.
Twitter cited a “small but measurable negative impact” from a number of policy and enforcement changes that it introduced ahead of the US election to prevent the spread of misinformation and encourage healthier “thoughtful” discussions on the platform.
Twitter said it expected user growth of 20 per cent year-over-year in the first quarter, compared with a 24 per cent growth rate in the first quarter of 2020. It said that “the significant pandemic-related surge we saw last year continues to create challenging comps” as it projected “low double digits” growth in the quarters for the rest of the year.
Peter Wells in New York
California on Tuesday reported fewer than 10,000 new coronavirus cases for the first time since late November in a “hopeful” sign the state has turned a corner in its handling of the pandemic.
Counties reported an additional 8,251 new infections, the state health department revealed this afternoon, down from 10,414 on Monday.
It was the first time California has reported fewer than 10,000 new cases in a single day since November 23 — just days before Thanksgiving — and was also the smallest number of new cases since November 13.
The most populous US state set a single day record of 53,711 on December 16, which presaged a record surge in hospitalisations and fatalities through the festive season and into 2021.
Over the past week, California has averaged 11,974 new infections a day, which is the first time since November 23 the seven-day average has been below 12,000. The rate was most recently below 10,000 on November 19.
A further 327 fatalities were attributed to coronavirus, up from 208 on Monday and taking the overall death toll — the highest in the US — to 44,477. California has averaged about 450 deaths a day over the past week.
A woman wearing a protective mask walks past an empty restaurant for lease in San Francisco
George Russell in Hong Kong
San Francisco said on Tuesday it would begin vaccinating people who work in education and childcare, emergency services, and food and agriculture from February 24.
The move would create another 115,000 people eligible for a jab, adding to the 210,000 healthcare workers and people 65 and older who are already eligible.
City officials acknowledged a lack of vaccines.
“Although vaccine supply remains extremely limited, we are making progress in vaccinating the most medically vulnerable people in our community,” said Dr Grant Colfax, the city’s public health director.
According to the state health department,123,433 total doses have been administered in San Francisco County, which is coterminous with the city, up to Monday — a level of 14,107 doses per 100,000 people.
Pharmacy chain CVS is set to offer vaccinations to eligible Californians at 100 sites across the state starting this week.
Donato Paolo Mancini in Rome
One of the UK government’s top scientific advisers has warned that early signs the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is less effective at stopping mild and moderate cases of the South African coronavirus variant are a “worrying harbinger” for 2021.
Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust medical charity and a member of the government’s Sage advisory committee, told the Financial Times that this year was “very unpredictable” as new viral variants less susceptible to current control methods were likely to undermine efforts to contain the virus.
Signs of the reduced efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against the 501.V2 variant in a limited South Africa study have already caused the country to suspend rollout of the jab, pending more data.
Oxford university and AstraZeneca have said their vaccine should still protect against severe cases of the disease and that they are working on a tweaked shot that could be available before the end of the year.
Philip Georgiadis in London
The UK aviation industry has called for an urgent plan out of the travel restrictions unveiled by the government as it warned the outlook was darkening for a sector that has endured a year of disruption.
On Tuesday, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, confirmed a scheme under which all arrivals into the country would need to take tests on the second and eighth days after arrival, adding to a host of other restrictions on travel.
The country’s airlines and airports said in a joint statement that the new measures “add a further barrier to viable air travel” and said they should be reviewed on a fortnightly basis.
US oil production will continue its coronavirus-driven decline through at least June, according to government forecasts. Output is expected to slide from 11m barrels a day in January to about 10.9m in June, the Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday, down from a pre-pandemic peak of 12.9m.
US president Joe Biden is set to meet business leaders including Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan and Doug McMillon, Walmart chief executive, as he seeks corporate support for his $1.9tn stimulus plan. The gathering in the Oval Office on Tuesday will mark Biden’s first with key company voices since his inauguration.
The most recent wave of Covid-19 is showing signs it might have peaked. Global average daily deaths fell steadily from a high of more than 14,200 on January 29 to 12,691 on February 7, according to a Financial Times analysis. The fall in deaths over the past week is the largest decline since May last year.
Scientists have identified 170 cases of the variant first identified in South Africa — known as 501.V2 — in the UK, including 18 cases not linked to travel, suggesting there is some community transmission. They also found 21 cases of the B117 variant, first identified in Kent and London, with an extra mutation of concern.
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AstraZeneca’s chief executive has sought to allay fears about the efficacy of its vaccine against new strains of coronavirus after South Africa postponed the rollout of the jab following the results of a clinical trial. Pascal Soriot said on Tuesday that he was confident the jab prevented severe disease triggered by the mutated strain.
Nissan and Honda raised their annual profit guidance on Tuesday as the carmakers cut costs to buck a decline in vehicle sales caused by the pandemic-triggered global chip shortage. Nissan trimmed its vehicle sales forecast for the year ending in March by 3.6 per cent, while rival Honda cut its target 2.2 per cent.
Beauty group Coty said weak demand for make-up from consumers stuck at home during the pandemic triggered a bigger-than-expected quarterly sales drop. Revenues at the company behind Max Factor and Rimmel fell 16 per cent from a year ago to $1.42bn in the three months to December 31.
Micro Focus, one of Britain’s largest technology companies, raised a goodwill impairment charge to $2.8bn as it completed the first year of a three-year turnround plan but reinstated its dividend. The IT group on Tuesday reported a 9 per cent decline in full-year sales to $3bn for the year ended October 31.