Yesterday, House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said that there will not be another government shutdown over Trump’s demands for border wall funding. She said that the longest shutdown in history which recently came to an end, was so unpopular that Republicans would not be prepared to let it happen again. That does not mean to say that it will not, but it is telling that when Trump once said he would be ‘proud’ to shut the government down, he quickly started blaming everyone else for it.
Initial jobless claims came in much higher than expected at 234,000 up to 2 February 2019, although that was down from 253,000 the previous week. The markets had been anticipating a figure of 221,000. Other than that, it was a fairly quiet day for US economic data, which is perhaps just as well given how much there was to digest from the UK and eurozone.
Today is a fairly quiet day across the board, but there will no doubt be plenty to worry about on the political landscape.
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