Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — The markets are counting down to a series of central bank meeting later this week. However, they continue to climb as new information from the health sector suggests that Covid-19’s dominant strain isn’t as dangerous as its predecessor. Europe is seeing record-breaking energy prices as Russia refuses to withdraw its tanks from the Ukrainian border or open the gas lines on its pipeline to Germany. The currency crisis in Turkey continues to spiral out-of control. What you need to know on Monday, Wednesday 13 December in the financial markets

1. Omicron data keeps coming in 

The Omicron version of Covid-19 was found to be less harmful than its Delta counterpart, according to health data collected around the globe.

Data from South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable diseases indicated that variant was only half as likely to cause serious illness, and that even those admitted to hospital spent less time there than victims of previous waves. South Africa’s Omicron victims have been killed in 3%, in contrast to the 20% fatality rate in previous waves.

Elsewhere, Germany’s seven-day average infection rate has fallen over 15% from its peak at the end of last month. Europe is likely to face more restrictions in the future. The U.K., whose government will not regret any distraction from a scandal over its own members’ behavior during past lockdowns, warned that it may yet have to shut schools again to stop viral spread, which is currently concentrated in schoolchildren and their parents.

2. China’s stimulus bets lead to iron ore jumping, pulling stock prices up

Chinese markets jumped on fresh speculation of economic stimulus to be announced by the government to stop any further deterioration in the real estate sector’s fortunes.

As the market waited for an easement in lending conditions to the construction industry and the lifting of restrictions on pollution, iron ore futures jumped 7% BHP Group (NYSE) was also impacted by this. Anglo American Rio Tinto and (NYSE:), (both of which underperformed following a $2.3billion loss on a Mongolian-related project).

However, benchmark Chinese stock indices rose between 0.4% – 1.0%, despite Hong Kong continuing to struggle under the heavy weight of property stocks.

3. U.S. stock prices set to rise; Chipmakers in Focus

U.S. stocks are set to open broadly higher, amid cautious optimism ahead of a heavy week for central bank meetings, dominated by the Federal Reserve’s press conference on Wednesday.

At 6:20 AM ET (1220 GMT), the points were up by 98, or 0.3%. They were also up 0.3% to 0.4%.

Market sentiment was also supported at the margins by reports that President Joe Biden will meet with Senator Joe Manchin later Monday in an attempt to break down his resistance to certain items in the ‘Build Back Better’ spending bill.  

Lucid will be one of the stocks that is likely to come under scrutiny later. This was after the electric vehicle manufacturer priced its bond offering much more tightly than it expected.   Intel (NASDAQ:), and chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor might also be of interest due to the reports about large capacity expansions in Germany, Malaysia and Malaysia.

4. European electricity, gas prices surge again as Russia deadlock continues 

As the Ukrainian military standoff with Russia kept additional Russian gas flowing on hold, prices in Europe’s wholesale energy markets remained close to records.

On the Intercontinental Exchange, benchmark Dutch gas futures increased by as high as 10%. However, gains were paring to increase 5.7% at late in Europe’s morning. Due to the insufficient gas injection during summer, storage levels are still at their lowest level in more than five years.

The higher gas prices incentivize more generators that burn coal, which in turn drives up the cost of carbon emissions credits. They rose by 1.9%, to above 85 euros per ton ($96/t),

OPEC also releases their monthly report about the world oil market at 12 PM GMT (12 AM ET)

5. Lira sinks as the government continues with its low-rate policy 

Turkey’s battle with the foreign exchange market continued to get messier, with the central bank intervening to cushion the lira’s fall for the fourth day in the last five.

Dollar rose to 14.619 lire earlier before falling back to 14.139 lire by 6:30 am ET. That’s up 1.9% on the day and a staggering 42% in the last month.

Turkey’s new finance minister repeated the government’s refusal to countenance higher interest rates, despite soaring inflation. Recep Takyip Erdogan has repeatedly defied economic logic and blamed inflation for the restrictive monetary policies of the former central bank management. He stated last week, however, that interest rates will be held low until at least the next elections.