28/11-4/12

Business

Grab, one of the most valuable technology companies in South East Asia listed on the NASDAQ in a record $40 billion merger with a SPAC. The deal makes it the largest ever listing on a US stock exchange for a South East Asian company and also the largest SPAC deal in the world.

Separately, Grab’s Chinese counterpart, Didi Chuxing will delist from the New York Stock Exchange and move to Hong Kong instead, as Beijing cracks down on the country’s leading technology groups continues. Didi listed in June 2021 but has since faced many regulatory crackdowns by the Chinese government ever since.

Jack Dorsey stepped down as chief executive of Twitter, which he helped found in 2006. Investors have long thought that Mr. Dorsey was spreading himself too thin between Twitter and Square (soon to be renamed Block), a payments company that he will still lead. The job of running this universal system of awareness now falls to Parag Agrawal, the former chief technology officer.

Economy

Jerome Powell also spooked markets when he said it was time to drop the word “transitory” from the Federal Reserve’s statements on inflation. The central bank’s chairman admitted that the risk of higher inflation had increased, and indicated that he would support a quicker pace of monetary-tightening measures.

US job growth slowed in November while the unemployment rate fell to its lowest since the pandemic began, painting a complex picture of the labour market’s recovery. Employers in the world’s largest economy added just 210,000 jobs for the month, well below economists’ forecasts of 550,000. Since the start of the year, monthly gains have averaged 555,000.

The euro zone’s average annual rate of inflation rose to 4.9% in November, the highest it has been since the creation of the single currency more than 20 years ago, adding more pressure on the European Central Bank to start winding down its stimulus program. In Germany inflation stood at 6%, a level not seen since the aftermath of reunification three decades ago.

Politics

Governments scrambled to limit the transmission of Omicron, the latest strain of covid-19, which initial evidence suggests spreads faster than earlier mutations, including Delta. First identified in South Africa, Omicron has been detected in at least 23 countries. The World Health Organisation warned that Omicron poses a “very high” global risk. Restrictions on travel from southern Africa were imposed by America, Britain, the European Union, South Korea and a host of other countries.

The European Commission launched what it is calling its Global Gateway scheme, an attempt to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The idea is to use EU investment guarantees to help raise as much as €300bn ($340bn) of public and private investment in the developing world. Critics say this is mostly a repackaging of various existing schemes.