This week, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. Based upon the list of priorities communicated so far, the administration appears focused on ramping up vaccine distribution and economic relief in his first few days in office.

The S&P 500, a broad measure of large publicly-traded US companies, advanced to another all-time high last week as the Democratic Party gained control of the Senate via the run-off elections in Georgia. The Democrats will control both houses of Congress when President-elect Biden is sworn in, which makes the prospect of significant additional fiscal stimulus more likely, both in the form of direct cash payments to Americans as well as infrastructure spending.

US stocks, as measured by the S&P 500 index, declined approximately 1% last week as hospitalizations and deaths in the US from the COVID-19 pandemic reached daily records (Chart 1). Despite these grim milestones, US equities continue to trade near all-time highs as investors anticipate an end to the pandemic in the coming months as vaccines are broadly distributed across the nation and the world.

On Sunday, Congressional leaders in the House and Senate announced that they had finally come to agreement on a long-awaited additional stimulus bill to mitigate the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of this writing, some of the final details of the bill remain uncertain, and the official vote is expected to happen on Monday.

US stocks, as measured by the S&P 500 index, declined approximately 1% last week as hospitalizations and deaths in the US from the COVID-19 pandemic reached daily records (Chart 1). Despite these grim milestones, US equities continue to trade near all-time highs as investors anticipate an end to the pandemic in the coming months as vaccines are broadly distributed across the nation and the world.

US stocks marched higher during the shortened Thanksgiving trading week, with the S&P 500 ending at an all-time high and the Dow Jones Industrial Average cresting above 30,000 for the first time ever . This week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the November employment report.

As we begin a shortened trading week for Thanksgiving, three major pharmaceutical companies have now announced success trials of COVID-19 vaccines. AstraZeneca followed Pfizer and Moderna in bringing forward new tools in the fight against the pandemic.

US stocks continued to move higher last week on the news of positive initial results from Pfizer regarding their COVID-19 vaccine. The S&P 500 index traded up 2% for the week, pushing the year-to-date return to 13% and moving the index to near all-time highs.