Closing summary
Stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic have risen strongly, with French and Italian indices about 1.5% ahead while the German market has gained 1%, and the UK stock market is flat.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones has gained more than 300 points, or 0.7%, while the S&P 500 is 1.1% ahead and the Nasdaq has jumped nearly 300 points, or 1.5%.
Crude oil prices have also climbed by more than 1%, boosted by colder than usual weather in Europe and the US. Brent crude is trading at $77.36 a barrel while US crude is at $74.87 a barrel.
Economists at ING said:
The dollar has sold off and then bounced back today on a Washington Post report that the new Trump administration may be more selective in its use of tariffs than first thought. Trump has since refuted the report, stating that its facts were wrong. As our traders say: welcome to the age of Trump 2.0.
Joe Biden has banned offshore drilling across an immense area of coastal waters, weeks before Donald Trump takes office pledging to massively increase fossil fuel production.
The US president’s ban encompasses the entire Atlantic coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Pacific coast off California, Oregon and Washington, and a section of the Bering Sea off Alaska.
A White House statement said the declaration protected more than 253m hectares (625m acres) of waters.
“As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” Biden said in a statement.
“In balancing the many uses and benefits of America’s ocean, it is clear to me that the relatively minimal fossil fuel potential in the areas I am withdrawing do not justify the environmental, public health, and economic risks that would come from new leasing and drilling,” he added.
US Steel and Nippon Steel have filed a lawsuit against Biden’s order that blocked the $14.9bn buyout of the American steelmaker by the Japanese company, they said on Monday.
The lawsuit asked the court to set aside the review process of the committee on foreign investment in the US and Biden’s order, citing “violation of the constitutional guarantee of due process and statutory procedural requirements, as well as unlawful political influence”.
More than half of British companies are planning price rises in the next three months, according to research that found UK business confidence has slumped to its lowest since the chaos of Liz Truss’s brief stint as prime minister.
Of 4,800 businesses polled by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), 55% said they expected to increase prices by April, up from 39% in a similar survey in the second half of last year.
There was also a steep increase in concern about looming tax rises, after the government revealed a budget in October that relied heavily on business taxation to raise £40bn in extra revenues, including £25bn more in employer national insurance contributions (NICs).
Our other main stories:
Updated
Factory orders in the United States fell by 0.4% in November from the previous month, slightly worse than the 0.3% drop expected by economists.
Excluding defence, factory orders were flat, and excluding transport, they rose by 0.2%, according to government figures.
New orders for manufactured durable goods in November fell by 1.2%, revised from a 1.1% drop, and following a 0.8% increase in October.
