Markets mixed, COVID-19 cases hit record highs in Europe

Markets were mixed on Thursday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent but the STOXX Europe 600 fell 1.0 percent and the Shanghai Composite tumbled 1.7 percent.

Megan Horneman, director of portfolio strategy at Verdence Capital Advisors, noted: “People are getting concerned about what kind of economic recovery we’re going to get in the next few months.”

Indeed, Goldman Sachs has slashed its US fourth-quarter GDP forecast to 3 percent from 6 percent on an annualised basis, noting that “any further fiscal support will likely have to wait until 2021”.

In Europe, the resurgence in COVID-19 remained a concern as the number of cases reached a record high of 52,418 over a rolling seven-day average on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The UK recorded its highest number of daily cases on Thursday at 6,634, and credit rating agency S&P Global now sees the UK GDP declining 9.7 percent this year.

Peter Drobac, a global health physician and director at Oxford University's Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, said that “we're losing control of this” and warned that “winter could be a perfect storm”.