European shares hit February highs on Wednesday, joining a global stock market rally on optimism around progress in COVID-19 vaccines and U.S. stimulus package, while all eyes turned to make-or-break Brexit talks.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index and London’s FTSE 100 both climbed 0.3%.

Minister for the Cabinet office, Michael Gove, on Wednesday said Britain and the EU should have a “smoother glide path” to a Brexit trade after they agreed on the Northern Ireland protocol – a major point of contention between the two sides – a day before.

(Reuters) – Twitter and three other U.S. tech companies have urged the EU to take a flexible approach towards harmful and illegal online content instead of blanket rules requiring takedown, saying this would preserve an open internet.
Known as the Digital Services Act, the rules aim to get bigger companies to take more responsibility for removing illegal and harmful content as soon as they have been notified.

A 90-year-old British woman has become the first person to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid 19 vaccine. She received the jab at 06:31 GMT at University Hospital in Coventry, administered by matron May Parsons.

As part of a nationwide rollout program, over 80s and some health and care staff will be vaccinated in the days to come. The UK is the first country in the world to start using the vaccine after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) granted emergency use approval last week to the vaccine.

It was been announced that NHS assured ‘myGP’ – the UK’s largest independent GP booking and healthcare management app – aims to provide people in England with a simple, clear means of communicating their verified Covid-19 vaccination status, via their smartphone. Due to be launched in February 2021, the new digital verified vaccination status feature will display, within the patient profile page of the app, whether or not a patient is sufficiently protected from COVID-19, illustrated via a few personal details and a simple green tick. 

(Reuters) Oil prices fell on Tuesday, adding to losses from the previous session that came as California tightened its pandemic lockdown through Christmas and coronavirus cases continued to surge in the United States and Europe.

Brent crude futures fell 1.1%, to $48.28 a barrel by 0744 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 45 cents to $45.31 a barrel.

Globally, a sharp rise in coronavirus cases has led to a string of renewed lockdowns, including strict measures in the U.S. state of California as well as Germany and South Korea.

(Reuters) Booming car sales drove a stronger-than-expected jump in German industrial output in October, in a further sign that the export-oriented manufacturing sector helped Europe’s largest economy to get off to a solid start in the fourth quarter.

The German government has unleashed an unprecedented array of rescue and stimulus measures to help companies and consumers get through the COVID-19 pandemic as unscathed as possible, including incentives to buy electric and hybrid cars.

Industrial output was up by 3.2% on the month after an upwardly revised increase of 2.3% in the previous month, figures released by the Federal Statistics Office showed on Monday.

Asian shares retreated from a record peak after a Reuters report stated the United States was preparing to impose sanctions on some Chinese officials, while oil prices fell.

In currencies, investor focus is on a last-ditch attempt by Britain and the EU to strike a post-Brexit trade deal this week.

If there is no deal, a five-year Brexit divorce will end messily, just as global economies grapple with the severe economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Six major retailers have agreed to repay more than £1.8bn in business rates relief, a policy introduced for all retailers in March.

Sainsburys, Asda, Tesco, B&M, Morrison’s and Aldi have announced they would be repaying their emergency tax payer support, received to counteract the economic effects of the pandemic.

While other retailers and hospitality firms have struggled with lockdown closures and other restrictions, supermarkets have seen a boom in sales this past year, albeit with higher costs linked to in store hygiene practices.

Asian shares scaled a record high on Friday on growing prospects of a large U.S. economic stimulus package, while hopes that vaccine rollouts will boost the global economy underpinned investor sentiment.

In New York, the S&P 500 erased earlier gains after the WSJ reported that Pfizer had slashed the target for the rollout of its COVID-19 vaccine due to supply chain obstacles.
In commodities, oil prices got a lift after OPEC+ agreed to ease their deep oil output cuts from January. They agreed to move to cutting production by 7.2 million compared with current cuts of 7.7million bpd.

(Reuters) Hopes that the pandemic, which has so far killed nearly 1.5 million people globally, will finally be brought under control sparked a risk-on rally in currency markets with the Australian and New Zealand dollars advancing against their U.S. counterpart.

In commodities, oil prices slipped on Thursday as producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia locked horns over the need to extend record production cuts set in place in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Business information provider S&P Global Inc agreed on Monday to pay $44 billion in stock to acquire IHS Markit Ltd in the year’s biggest acquisition that will create a new data powerhouse serving Wall Street and the corporate world.

The deal raises the stakes in the consolidation sweeping the fragmented financial information services industry, as companies race to create one-stop shops to lure the biggest clients and invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

World stocks hovered near record highs on Wednesday when Britain became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use, saying it would start rolling it out early next week.

The dollar was stuck at 2-1/2 year lows against the euro and an index of major currencies as investors sought out the higher risk currencies that had fallen during the earlier stages of the pandemic.
Yields on euro zone government bonds edged up to their highest in three weeks at -0.51%.