Oil and the pandemic

Oil was primed for its first weekly loss since October, as the discovery of a potentially faster-spreading
variant of Covid-19 in the UK increased the risk of more lockdowns weakening demand. The mutated
strain of coronavirus that has been spreading in the UK appears to be more contagious and will likely lead
to higher levels of hospitalizations and deaths next year, a new study showed.
 
National market
This Wednesday the local market session remained extremely passive as expected at the end of the year.
$ 2.3 million were traded in just 6 operations with government underlying assets in foreign currency. The
bonds with the highest volume traded were the tp $ 210229 with $ 1.04 million at a yield of 8.34%, and $
700 thousand of the tp $ 250533 at a yield of 8.65%.
Costa Rican Eurobonds registered a slight upward adjustment, averaging -2 basis points on the curve.
Finally, there were no transactions for sovereign securities in local currency.

International market
2020 is already beginning to close and with it a year full of great economic and financial challenges.
International markets are close to closing with mixed results, as the German and United States stock
markets maintain gains above 2019, while the remaining European economies have not yet recovered
from the COVID-19 shock. This behavior has been explained by a support of the monetary and fiscal
policy that have favored the global recovery, but partially offset by the new waves of COVID-19 that
have led to the application of containment measures.
Faced with this situation, the end of the year has been focused on the need for a new stimulus package,
which the United States Congress has just approved. The relief plan is estimated to total $ 900 billion
through unemployment benefits, space credits for small businesses, and resources for the federal
government. This package is key, since it is projected that it will allow the North American economy to
accelerate its recovery, which has lost strength in the last quarter of 2020.