Wall Street has opened higher, near record highs, amid hopes of more fiscal stimulus, while the FTSE 100 index in London is flat, and European markets are pushing higher.

• Dow Jones up 31 points, or 0.1%, at 31,469
• S&P 500 up 10 points, or 0.27%, at 3,920
• Nasdaq up 75 points, or 0.54%, at 14,048
• UK’s FTSE 100 up 0.01% at 6,524
• Germany’s Dax up 0.73% at 14,034
• France’s CAC up 0.17% at 5,680
• Italy’s FTSE MiB up 0.34% at 23,343

Claims remain above their 665,000 peak hit during the financial crisis and great recession of 2007-2009. They are, however, well below the record 6.867m reported last March when the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged yesterday that the “improvement in labor market conditions stalled” in the past few months because of a resurgence in coronavirus infections, which weighed heavily on restaurants and shops.

Other government data last Friday (non-farm payrolls) showed that the economy created only 49,000 jobs in January after losing 227,000 in December.

Reuters reports:

But there is cause for cautious optimism. Reported new coronavirus cases in the United States dropped 25% last week, the biggest fall since the pandemic hit the nation. Infections have now fallen for four consecutive weeks, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.

Should the trend continue and the distribution of vaccines broaden out, that could allow more businesses to reopen.

President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion recovery package on top of nearly $900 billion in additional pandemic relief provided by the government in late December could also support the labor market. The economy has recovered 12.3 million of the 22.2 million jobs lost during the pandemic.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated employment would not return to its pre-pandemic level before 2024. Millions of jobless Americans are experiencing long spells of unemployment.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits edged lower last week, according to data from the US Labor Department.

Initial jobless claims in the US fell to 793,000 in the week to 6 February, compared with 812,000 in the previous week, while the overall number of claims remained high at 4.54m. Wall Street had forecast a reading of 757,000.

And Paolo Gentiloni, Commissioner for Economy said:

Europeans are living through challenging times. We remain in the painful grip of the pandemic, its social and economic consequences all too evident. Yet there is, at last, light at the end of the tunnel.

As increasing numbers are vaccinated over the coming months, an easing of containment measures should allow for a strengthening rebound over the spring and summer. The EU economy should return to pre-pandemic GDP levels in 2022, earlier than previously expected – though the output lost in 2020 will not be recouped so quickly, or at the same pace across our Union.

This forecast is subject to multiple risks, related for instance to new variants of COVID-19 and to the global epidemiological situation. On the other hand, the impact of Next Generation EU should provide a strong boost to the hardest-hit economies over the coming years, which is not yet integrated into today’s projections.

Valdis Dombrovskis, who chairs the Commissioners’ Group on an Economy that Works for People, said:

Today’s forecast provides real hope at a time of great uncertainty for us all. The solid expected pick-up of growth in the second half of this year shows very clearly that we are turning the corner in overcoming this crisis.

A strong European response will be crucial to tackle issues such as job losses, a weakened corporate sector and rising inequalities. We will still have a great deal to do to contain the wider socio-economic fallout. Our recovery package will go a long way to supporting the recovery, backed up by vaccination roll-out and a likely upswing in global demand.

In Greece, the unemployment rate dropped to 16.2% in November from 16.7% the month before.

Here is our full story:

Soriot is wrapping up the press conference now following the publication of AstraZeneca’s 2020 results.

What we have today is a vaccine that has provided 100% protection against severe disease, a vaccine that is well tolerated and has more than 70% efficiency after one dose.

Menelas Pangalos, executive vice-president of BioPharmaceuticals research & development at AstraZeneca, said “it’s quite possible” that the current Covid-19 vaccine can protect against severe disease caused by the new Covid strains – such as the Kent and South African variants. But to protect against milder symptoms, the vaccine will need to be adapted, he said.

Pascal Soriot, the chief executive, said the company is aiming to make the new vaccine available in the autumn.

Pangalos also said that the company expects to publish data from the late-stage US trial of its current vaccine in older age groups before the end of March.

During the press conference, AstraZeneca said it is making more than 100m doses of its Covid-19 vaccine every month, and will ramp this up to over 200m a month from April.

Here is Reuters’ take on the AstraZeneca results.

Shell has vowed to accelerate its plan to become a net zero carbon energy company by 2050, but will continue to grow its gas business by over 20% in the next few years, our energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose reports.

Shell’s oil production reached a peak in 2019, and will continue to fall by 1-2% a year, but the fossil fuel giant plans to expand its capacity for exporting gas by 7 million tonnes a year by the middle of the decade.

Shell has capacity to export 33.3 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) on super-chilled tankers every year, meaning its near-term plan to grow the business will increase its LNG capacity by over a fifth within a crucial decade for avoiding a climate catastrophe.

The fossil fuel giant plans to offset its own carbon emissions, and the carbon emissions from the fossil fuels it sells, by accessing carbon capture projects and “nature-based solutions” such as planting trees or restoring natural habitats.

Shell is currently involved in three carbon capture projects, of which one is operational, which will be able to capture 4.5 million tonnes of carbon a year once complete. It hopes to directly access enough projects to capture another 25 million tonnes of carbon a year by 2035.

Royal Mail delivered more parcels than ever before during the Christmas quarter of the year amid lockdowns across the UK, but the company apologised for disruptions to service that it blamed on Covid-19 absences, my colleague Jasper Jolly reports.

The company delivered 496m parcels during the last three months of 2020, 30% higher than the same period in 2019, it said on Thursday.

Royal Mail has kept on 10,000 out of the 33,000 seasonal workers who joined for the Christmas peak to deal with increased traffic during the latest lockdowns.

In other news, Amsterdam overtook London as Europe’s largest share trading hub last month in the aftermath of Brexit, the Financial Times reports. It says:

An average €9.2bn shares a day were traded on Euronext Amsterdam and the Dutch arms of CBOE Europe and Turquoise in January, a more than fourfold increase from December. The surge came as volumes in London fell sharply to €8.6bn, dislodging the UK from its historic position as the main hub for the European market, according to data from CBOE Europe.

The shift was prompted by a ban on EU-based financial institutions trading in London because Brussels has not recognised UK exchanges and trading venues as having the same supervisory status as its own.

Without this so-called equivalence to ease cross-border dealing, there was an immediate shift of €6.5bn of deals to the EU when the Brexit transition period concluded at the end of last year. It was about half of the amount of business that London banks and brokers would normally handle.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, says:

The company’s status as a global brand has been enhanced by its Covid-19 vaccine where, despite some concerns on efficacy from some quarters, an endorsement from the World Health Organization has allayed those fears.

But for the company, aside from the pandemic, the core business continues to grow...

New medicines are responsible for over half of revenues and emerging market sales jumped by 53%. Less positively, the effects of the pandemic have had other effects on the company’s more traditional drug sales. Fewer hospital visits and important surgical procedures have impacted sales for some of its drugs which are usually used.

AstraZeneca shares rose 1.7% to £73.73 this morning but went through a rough patch after the $39bn acquisition of Alexion in mid-December, its biggest deal ever, as analysts feared that the company was overpaying for the rare diseases specialist. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, says:

For a company that has been at the forefront of leading the fight against Covid-19 the performance in the AstraZeneca share price has been very underwhelming, with the shares at ten-month lows.

A lot of this may have to do with the fact that AstraZeneca, along with Oxford University is producing the vaccine at cost, along with tweaks to any possible variant, in a move that hasn’t been replicated to the same extent by its peers in the industry.

In terms of PR, it probably seemed like a smart move at the time, however given the flak it has received over the slightly slower rollout to production of the vaccine in the European Union, they would probably be forgiven for thinking that no good deed goes unpunished.

The joint venture with Oxford University has a slightly lower efficacy rate than its peers, and isn’t a messenger RNA vaccine unlike the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, however it has caused quite a storm in Europe, after the company said it needed to streamline its European operations, in order to be able to increase the plants longer term productive capacity, thus delaying the rollout, citing the slower ratification process by the EU in approving the dose.

European stock markets have opened cautiously higher.

• UK’s FTSE 100 up 8.5 points, or 0.13%, at 6,532
• Germany’s Dax up 0.2%
• France’s CAC up 0.3%
• Italy’s FTSE MiB up 0.2%

Here is some reaction.

Sebastian Skeet, senior analyst at the global research firm Third Bridge, says:

On a human level AstraZeneca’s vaccine saga has been disappointing; the clash with the EU, new data demonstrating a lack of efficacy in preventing mild to moderate infection caused by the South African variant, and the decision by German authorities to limit vaccinations in persons under 65 years old. Ultimately, this does represent a share price overhang too.

However, the opposite can be said for AstraZeneca’s core business. The company is arguably the poster child for big pharma turnarounds, with CEO Pascal Soriot rebuilding the pipeline and establishing the necessary growth drivers. This is exemplified by AstraZeneca’s recent performance. which demonstrated double digit revenue growth, improved profitability and core EPS growth of 18% at constant exchange rates.”

The oncology portfolio, AstraZeneca’s crown jewels, has grown 23% year-on-year driven by Tagrisso, Lyparza and Imfinzi. Historically muted sales for Calquence, and even Imfinzi by comparison to its peer group, have either been buoyed by recent trial results, or have more on the way. AstraZeneca’s $39bn bid for Alexion is still raising questions, with some investors yet to warm to the idea given a heavy reliance on a two drugs, Soliris and Ultomiris, and potential competitors lining up.

Backed by a rich pipeline including Tezepelumab, and with Enhertu gaining FDA approval in breast and gastric cancer, top line growth is looking strong. That being said, the impact of the pandemic has been felt and we could see a hangover effect on patient volumes in the coming quarters.

Pascal Soriot, the chief executive, said:

The performance last year marked a significant step forward for AstraZeneca. Despite the significant impact from the pandemic, we delivered double-digit revenue growth to leverage improved profitability and cash generation.

The consistent achievements in the pipeline, the accelerating performance of our business and the progress of the Covid-19 vaccine demonstrated what we can achieve, while the proposed acquisition of [rare-diseases specialist] Alexion is intended to accelerate our scientific and commercial evolution even further.

AstraZeneca received a significant boost yesterday when its Covid-19 vaccine was recommended by a World Health Organization panel for use in all adults – despite limited data on the jab’s efficacy for older people, which has caused some countries in Europe to rule out its use in the over-65s.

The vaccine is important for poorer countries because it is much cheaper than rival jabs (at $3 to $5 a dose) and easier to transport and store, at fridge temperature.

It also announced yesterday that it would build a new vaccine manufacturing facility in partnership with IDT Biologika at the German firm’s Dessau site, in a move aiming to speed up production and defuse a row with the EU over supplies.