US ECONOMY & POLITICS

U.S. Unemployment Claims Slip but Hold at High Levels – Wall Street Journal, 11/12/20

• New applications for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, suggesting layoffs are easing as the broader economy flashes signs of improvement.
• Initial claims for jobless benefits, a proxy for layoffs, declined to 709,000 last week from 757,000 a week earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday.
• The number of people collecting unemployment benefits through regular state programs, which cover most workers, dropped to 6.8 million for the week ended Oct. 31 from 7.2 million a week earlier.
• Thursday’s report from the Labor Department provides data on unemployment claims filed through regular state programs, as well as details from two pandemic-specific programs first implemented in March.
• The larger of those programs—available to the self-employed, gig workers and others not typically eligible for unemployment aid—paid benefits to 9.4 million workers in the week ended Oct. 24, according to the Labor Department.
• A second pandemic program pays 13 additional weeks of benefits to individuals who have exhausted regular unemployment benefits.
• The number of workers claiming benefits through this program increased to 4.1 million in late October, the highest level since the program started this spring.

U.S. Consumer Prices Unchanged in October – Wall Street Journal, 11/12/20

• U.S. consumer prices were flat in October following four straight months of gains, a sign of subdued inflation as coronavirus cases again climbed across the U.S.
• The consumer-price index—which measures what consumers pay for everyday items including groceries, clothing and vehicles—was unchanged in October from September, the Labor Department said Thursday.
• Excluding the often-volatile categories of food and energy, so-called core prices were also flat.

President-Elect Joe Biden Selects Ron Klain as His White House Chief of Staff – Wall Street Journal, 11/11/20

• President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff, turning to a longtime adviser and Ebola czar under President Obama as he prepares his incoming administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
• Mr. Klain, 59, served as chief of staff to then-Vice President Biden from 2009 to 2011 and previously worked as chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore. During the Obama administration, he played a behind-the-scenes role in the administration’s economic-recovery efforts and the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
• Mr. Klain’s work with Mr. Biden has spanned more than three decades, beginning with roles in the 1980s on the Senate Judiciary Committee while Mr. Biden served as chairman and on Mr. Biden’s first presidential campaign in 1987.

Georgia to Recount All Votes in Presidential Race by Hand – Wall Street Journal, 11/11/20

• Georgia officials said Wednesday they would hold a rare, by-hand recount of the state’s 5 million votes for president, a move that comes amid a close margin as other states are winding down their official counts.
• Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said that state law requires him to certify the election results by Nov. 20.
• Reached Wednesday evening, Mr. Raffensperger said he didn’t believe the recount would change the vote tally in Georgia.
• “I have faith in the accuracy of the electronic voting machines,” he said, adding, “I believe the results are accurate.”
• The Republican president and his allies have said they would wait for all the votes in key states to be counted and certified before they accept the results, a process that they may try to slow with their legal challenges.

GOP Keeps Alaska Senate Seat as Attention Turns to Georgia – Wall Street Journal, 11/11/20

• Republicans notched another Senate win on Wednesday, putting their majority at 50-48 ahead of two runoff elections set for Georgia in January.
• Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan defeated independent Al Gross, the Associated Press said Wednesday, after Mr. Gross didn’t significantly cut into Mr. Sullivan’s large lead as absentee votes were tallied.
• The AP also called President Trump as the winner in his race, where he led 57% to 39% over Democrat Joe Biden.
• Two runoff races in Georgia in January will determine which party controls the chamber. If Democrats win both seats and make it 50-50, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, could cast any tiebreaking votes.

Smaller House Majority Poses Headaches for Democrats – Wall Street Journal, 11/11/20

• Democrats’ majority in the House is set to be their tightest since World War II, limiting their room to maneuver on legislation with President-elect Joe Biden and possibly raising tensions between centrist and progressive lawmakers.
• Heading into the election, Democrats had a majority of 232 to 197, with one Libertarian and five open seats. That balance is now at 218 Democrats to 202 Republicans, with the Associated Press calling the majority for Democrats when they hit 218 late Tuesday.
• Republicans are leading in several undecided races, meaning the parties could end up separated by less than 10 seats.
• Democrats’ thin majority could force party leaders to walk a fine line on legislating and force them to pull in Republican votes on must-pass items, such as spending or defense bills, if leadership is unable to bring the party’s left flank on board.
• The last time Democrats had this small an expected majority was during the 1943-1945 session, according to House records.

EUROPE & WORLD

U.K. on Course for Weakest Performance Among Advanced Economies – Wall Street Journal, 11/12/20

• The British economy expanded at a weaker pace than its European peers in the third quarter, highlighting the outsize toll the coronavirus pandemic is taking on the U.K.
• The U.K. economy grew 15.5% in the three months through September, the country’s Office for National Statistics said Thursday, as consumers and businesses emerged from the nationwide lockdowns imposed in the spring to halt the spread of the virus.
• The result is the U.K. is trailing its peers in its recovery. U.K. economic output at the end of the third quarter was 9.7% lower than it was at the end of 2019 before the virus emerged out of China and spread around the globe.
• That shortfall is twice that recorded in France, Germany and Italy, and almost three times that reported in the U.S.

Gaming boom plays into Tencent’s hands with 89% profit rise – Reuters, 11/12/20

• Tencent’s blockbuster game and solid advertising drove an 89% rise in quarterly profit at the Chinese gaming and social media group, helping it to beat forecasts on Thursday.
• Revenue rose 29% to 125.4 billion yuan.
• Tencent said revenue from its cloud and other business services, a potential future growth engine, grew more slowly as a result of the lingering impact of the pandemic, with delays in areas such as project deployment and new contract sign-ups.
• Tencent reported a return to normal in advertising activity after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with rapid growth in sectors such as education, internet services and e-commerce.
• With its flagship game Honour of Kings reporting a record 100 million daily active users in the first 10 months of 2020, Tencent, the world’s largest gaming firm by revenue, has benefited from growth of paying users for video games.
• Tencent said on Thursday its profit was 38.5 billion yuan ($5.8 billion) for the three months through September.
• That was ahead of an analyst average estimate of 30.81 billion yuan, data from Refinitiv showed.

Foxconn sees strong iPhone 12 demand, reiterates U.S. investment – Reuters, 11/11/20

• Apple supplier Foxconn forecast strong demand for the new iPhone 12 in the holiday quarter and stressed that it would continue investing in the United States as scheduled and is looking at making new products there.
• Chief Financial Officer David Huang said third-quarter revenue fell 7% due to clients delaying product launches.
• It booked July-September net profit of T$30.8 billion ($1.08 billion), Reuters calculations showed based on nine-month figures, versus T$30.7 billion a year earlier.
• That compared with the T$28.61 billion average of 13 analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv.
• Still, Liu said Foxconn saw “stronger than expected” demand for both smartphones and servers, with strong shipments of Apple’s new iPhone 12 supporting revenue.

Merck KGaA lifts earnings guidance on demand for lab tools – Reuters, 11/12/20

• Healthcare and chemicals group Merck lifted its guidance for full year earnings after the scramble to ready treatments and vaccines against the coronavirus bolstered demand for its supplies for biotech labs.
• In the third quarter, adjusted core profit for the group, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), jumped more than 50% to 1.7 billion euros, beating the average estimate of 1.6 billion in an analyst poll posted on its website.
• Core earnings before special items in 2020 will likely be between 5.05 billion euro ($5.94 billion) and 5.25 billion euros, The German group said in a statement on Thursday, also citing the release of provisions worth 365 million after winning a legal dispute with Biogen BIIB.O.
• Merck previously predicted a range for 2020 of 4.45 billion to 4.85 billion euros, up from 4.39 billion a year earlier.

Alibaba Sets ‘Singles Day’ Sales Record – Wall Street Journal, 11/11/12

• Chinese consumers stayed glued to their phones Wednesday, spending billions of dollars on items such as Taylor Swift-branded jackets, Apple iPhones and prepaid beach vacations, in a test of Chinese consumer confidence after the disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic.
• By the end of Nov. 11, also known as Singles Day, Alibaba, the Chinese technology giant, said it had raked in the equivalent of a record $75.1 billion.
• China boasts roughly 749 million online shoppers, according to state agency China Internet Network Information Center, more than twice the total population of the U.S.

Factmonster – TODAY in HISTORY

• Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and Joseph Stalin became the ruler of the Soviet Union. (1927)
• The World War II battle of Guadalcanal begins. (1942)
• Ellis Island stopped serving as the chief immigration station for the United States. Twenty million immigrants went through Ellis Island in its 62 years of operation. (1954)