Right, time to wrap up.

Here’s today’s main stories:

Goodnight. GW

The pound is falling back from its earlier one-year high against the US dollar, following some less-than-optimistic tweets:

The pound is still around 0.6% against the US dollar, though, at $1.344 (having jumped to virtually $1.35 earlier)

The end of the English lockdown, and the re-opening of non-essential stores, has meant a 40-hour shopping marathon at some Primark stores.

My colleague Lucy Campbell was at Brocklebank retail park, south-east London, at midnight, and reports....

Primark said it had anticipated higher demand before the festive season and was trying to keep queues under control by spreading shopping hours over longer periods of time. And in the early hours of Thursday morning, avoiding large crowds as the pandemic rumbled on seemed to be behind many customers’ thinking.

“I expected shopping in the middle of the night to be quieter, but it’s just as packed,” said 56-year-old Pauline Scotter, who said the queue to get in when she arrived had gone the length of the store.

Though she has a disability that affects her back and cannot stand for long periods of time, Scotter said she did not like online shopping – “the material’s never as nice as it looks”. So she welcomed the opportunity to go back in-store to pick up “cheap and cheerful” Christmas presents for her fast-growing grandchildren. She had loaded up her car, she said, with bags full of “wintry bits” – tracksuits, leggings and jumpers – and was ready to head home to nearby Kidbrooke before 1am.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has urged the government to use the money being returned by supermarkets to support smaller firms, who have suffered badly in the pandemic.

“I welcome the decision by several supermarkets to repay the hundreds of millions of pounds they saved during the business rates holiday. I’m urging other major supermarket chains who have done well during the pandemic to follow suit.

“The business rates holiday has been a lifeline for many retailers and hospitality businesses which had to stop trading during the pandemic and for which trade will not return to normal any time soon – even with the vaccine on the horizon. They need the certainty of an extension of the business rates holiday to the next financial year.

“The Government should put the money returned by supermarkets to good use by providing additional support to small and independent retailers and hospitality businesses throughout the rest of the pandemic.”

Sterling’s rally against the dollar comes after Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said earlier today that there’s a good chance that Britain and the European Union would secure a trade deal within days.

“There’s a good chance we can get a deal across the line in the next few days,” he told Ireland’s Newstalk radio. “We are in the space of days not weeks.”

Connor Campbell of SpreadEx says this may have been enough to give sterling a pop higher, against the out-of-favour dollar.

Surging 1% against the dollar and 0.4% against the euro, the pound appeared to rise after Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney claimed that ‘there’s a good chance we can get a deal across the line in the next few days’.

It’s the kind of comment that has been heard before in the last couple of weeks, without anything materialising. Nevertheless, with the deadline looming, sterling will take what it can get.

The surge in Boeing’s share price has pushed the Dow Jones industrial average back over 30,000 points, and close to last week’s record highs.

Optimism over the new bipartisan push for a US stimulus deal is also lifting stocks on Wall Street, with the broader S&P 500 index and the tech-focused Nasdaq both at fresh record peaks.

Twenty five US states received at least one thousand more jobless claims last week than in the previous seven days, today’s jobs report shows.

Many of them cited layoffs in the retail, accommodation and food services sectors -- a sign that the pandemic is hitting the hospitality economy again.

Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, is concerned by today’s unemployment figures:

Back in the markets, the pound has risen to a new three-month high against the US dollar.

Sterling is up a cent at $1.3470 against the greenback, which has sagged to its lowest level in over two and a half-years against a basket of currencies.

The dollar is weakening as traders anticipate a new US stimulus deal soon, and co-ordinated, loose, fiscal and monetary policy under president-elect Joe Biden and Treasury secretary nominee Janet Yellen.

On Tuesday a bipartisan group of US senators proposed a $908bn spending package to break the deadlock on Capitol Hill. Attempts to agree a stimulus deal floundered before the election, and have not resumed.

The pound’s also higher against the euro, up 0.4% at €1.108. That recovers Wednesday’s fall, as Brexit trade deal talks continue in London (with the clock ticking ever more urgently...)

The drop in fresh US unemployment claims last week may not show the true impact of the pandemic raging in America, warns Richard Flynn, UK Managing Director at Charles Schwab.

“Today’s positive U.S. jobs data may be a welcome boost to markets, but investors should continue to be wary of the impact of the further lockdowns. Selective lockdowns are being implemented in some states as case counts climb a second time and health care systems risk becoming overwhelmed. Europe’s secondary outbreak is ahead of the U.S. and some countries’ economies are already experiencing the negative effects of lockdowns.

“However, although the term lockdown is being used, it’s really “lockdown-lite” compared with the restrictions imposed last spring. Places such as schools, churches, manufacturing businesses and construction sites remain open, standing in contrast to the first lockdown, when all these areas of the economy were closed.

The drop in US unemployment claims may be due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Last week’s break will have meant less time for states to receive and process jobless claims (and also leads to temporary swings in the labor market).

Glassdoor Senior Economist Daniel Zhao explains:

Normal holiday hiring swings and anticipated seasonal furloughs in certain sectors like construction or retail could muddy the data on the extent of economic damage as COVID-19 cases rise. The tea leaves will be hard to decipher these next few months.

Tomorrow’s jobs report could expose deeper cracks in the recovery resulting from the recent surge in pandemic cases. While a repeat of the spring crash is unlikely, it revealed how quickly economic damage can accumulate. Promising vaccine news offers a light at the end of the tunnel, which makes it all the more important that Congress helps the economy hold onto gains made to-date. We don’t want to trip over our own feet with the finish line in sight.”

The number of Americans receiving unemployment support for at least a fortnight also fell.

The continuing claims total dropped to 5.52m in the week to November 21, from 6.08m the previous seven days.

That sounds positive (if people are moving back into work), but it may simply show that some families have simply used up their entitlement, so their benefits are expiring.

The Evening Standard is reporting that the first supplier casualty from the collapse of Topshop owner Arcadia Group may have emerged.

London firm Lloyd Shoe Company has lined up administrators, reports that Standard’s Joanna Bourke:

Hackney-based Lloyd Shoe Co employs 243 people and operates footwear concessions within some Arcadia stores, sourcing shoe ranges.

The firm continues to trade as normal however it has filed a notice to appoint an administrator, FRP Advisory, to seek a buyer for the business

The UK hospitality industry want the government to create a Hospitality & Tourism Recovery Fund, supported by the cash from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s and Aldi (so far...).

UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls says the money would support businesses who haven’t been able to trade since the pandemic began:

“It is an admirable and altruistic gesture from a company that is clearly in a much better financial situation than the vast majority of the those in hospitality. The question now is what happens to this money, which the Government had intended to invest in supporting businesses.

“We are calling on the Government to earmark that money, to create a fund for those hospitality and tourism businesses that are at high risk of failure, have been closed since March or that have had no grant support, similar to the Cultural Recovery Fund. A Hospitality and Tourism Recovery Fund, including rent support to preserve the future of our high streets, would deliver a huge boost to businesses that are only just clinging onto life right when they need it most.”

Conservative MPs are pushing the government to use the supermarket’s money to support companies and individuals who were excluded from previous support measures.

Those who missed out on government support include people who were between jobs when the furlough scheme was announced, or had just started.

Self-employed people making over £50,000 per year were also barred from the Self Employment Income Support Scheme, as did the newly self-employed who hadn’t yet filed a tax return.

Anyone who was set up as a limited company were also blocked.

ExcludedUK, a campaign group, estimate that three million people are affected altogether.

The business rates relief being returned by supermarkets can be used to support struggling firms to recover from the economic shock of Covid-19.

One option is to extend the business rates holiday beyond next March for the hardest-hit companies.

Richard Churchill, partner at tax and advisory firm Blick Rothenberg, points out that some non-essential retailers have struggled to trade since the pandemic began, and need ongoing financial support.

Hopefully the Government will be able to build on this good news story and provide clarity to these hardest hit businesses in retail, hospitality and leisure as they seek to rebuild in 2021.

“Many of these businesses have exhausted the other support measures in place and have critically low cash reserves. Knowing that their rates bill will be reduced or extinguished would be a real boost to these small businesses and allow more of them to be viable and continue to trade in 2021. “

As other support measures come to an end and tax deferrals for 2020 become payable, cashflow will be critical for these businesses and Government should act now to provide further support and clarity for rates and give the targeted recipients of the relief time to plan.”

Retail analyst Mark Brumby tweets:

Tesco’s new chief executive, Ken Murphy, has been explaining yesterday’s decision to hand back £585m of business rates relief on Sky News.

Murphy says that “the world was in chaos” in March, and the “decisive action” by the government helped it invest.

That meant shielding 26,000 vulnerable staff, hiring more than 50,000 new colleagues, and creating 1.5m delivery slots to look after 700,000 vulnerable, self-isolating customer.

So at the time, Tesco felt it was ‘completely justified’ in keeping the money, as it had spent “every penny and more” on its Covid-19 costs.

But it’s now clear that the pandemic isn’t a temporary crisis.

As time when on, and we saw that this crisis was going to linger and keep going, we went into a second lockdown, we were able to trade through it....and many, many businesses, smaller businesses were not able to open, we saw communities suffering and of course the young were really hard hit by this in terms of unemployment.

So we felt that, at this point the right thing to do was to give the money back.

Q: You’re due to declare a special dividend following the sale of your businesses in Thailand & Malaysia -- that wouldn’t have been a good look while accepting this relief, would it?

Murphy insists the two issues are “completely disconnected”, and didn’t influence the decision.

Q: There’s some speculation that you’ve done this because it’s slightly easier for you than for some competitors, and puts them in a bind. Any truth in it?

Handing back nearly £600m of money that some shareholders might think is theirs is never an easy decision, says Murphy.

When we made the decision we didn’t really think about the competition at all.

We were really focused on what was the right thing for the Tesco brand, what was the right thing for Tesco customers and Tesco communities, and that’s why we took the decision.

Murphy also argues for business rates reform, saying Tesco’s bill has gone up 80% in the last decade while sale at some stores are flat or declining due to the growth in online shopping.

We are seeing a massive penalisation of the retail sector.

An online sales tax is “absolutely the right thing to do”, he insists, even though Tesco is the UK’s largest online grocer.

Tesco’s announcement yesterday morning may have caught rivals on the hop (although they must have known the issue wasn’t going away).

Here’s Hugh Radojev of Retail Week:

Aldi’s move means around £1.4bn of business rates relief has now been waived by supermarkets, since Tesco announced its u-turn yesterday morning.

Here’s how much is being paid:

• Tesco: £585m
• Sainsbury: £440m (£410m this year, £30m in 2021-22)
• Morrisons: £274m
• Aldi: more than £100m

Pressure had been building for some time -- indeed, the decision to give supermarkets 100% relief from business rates was criticised back in April:

The situation became stickier once supermarkets began paying dividends on the back of strong trading this year.

Sainsbury was especially vulnerable, as its dividend bill for the first half of the financial year pretty much equalled its business rates relief (although some of the dividend was for pre-Covid trading...):

A former minister, Esther McVey MP, piled on the pressure last month after Altus calculated that the supermarkets would save £1.9bn between them.

The second English lockdown has provided another sales boost to supermarkets, while vaccine rollouts should reduce the economic risks in 2021.

But hospitality firms face a struggle to simply survive until next year, and unemployment is expected to rise sharply.

Tesco’s chairman John Allan saw the writing on the wall yesterday, when he said:

We are financially strong enough to be able to return this to the public, and we are conscious of our responsibilities to society.

We firmly believe now that this is the right thing to do, and we hope this will enable additional support to those businesses and communities who need it.”

Waiving business rates relief means it will take Sainsbury’s longer to hit its debt reduction targets.

It tells the City that shareholders shouldn’t bear the “full short-term financial impact” of making “the right decisions for customers and colleagues”*

Therefore, when considering free cash flow allocation this year the Board will prioritise payment of dividends to shareholders over net debt reduction

As a consequence, while we expect to make good progress towards our target of at least £750 million net debt reduction in the three years to March 2022, we now expect to achieve this target by March 2023

Shares in Sainsbury’s have risen 1.5% in early trading, recovering some of yesterday’s 2.8% drop (after Tesco’s move).

[* -- Sainsbury points out it has hired 56,000 people, paid 13,000 vulnerable staff to self-isolate for 12 weeks and made nearly nine million grocery deliveries to elderly, disabled and vulnerable customers]

Ministers should heed Sainsbury’s call for business rates to be reformed, says Michael Hewson of CMC Markets:

While the move is welcome it doesn’t change the fact that the government needs to look at a business rates model that is outdated, and penalises bricks and mortar retailers in a way that on-line retailers don’t have to contend with.

It’s all very well criticising the supermarkets for taking taxpayers money, but let’s not forget that the retail sector wouldn’t be in anywhere near as much trouble, if it wasn’t for government procrastination over reforming business rates policy.

Business rates are charged based on the estimated rental value of a property. Last year, MPs said the system was ‘broken’, and putting an unfair burden on high street firms.

Asked on Wednesday if it would match the Tesco pledge, the Co-op said the amount spent on protecting staff and customers outweighed the savings, the Press Association reports:

“Given the huge uncertainty we’re facing... and the ongoing costs we are incurring, we’ll consider our approach in terms of the Government support we’ve received at year end.”

A spokesman for Waitrose-owner the John Lewis Partnership said:

“We are incredibly grateful for this vital support because we have lost significant sales while our John Lewis shops have been closed, and have invested heavily to keep our partners and customers safe.

“The outlook remains incredibly uncertain and Government support remains crucial to help us navigate the crisis.

“We’re a business owned by our employees - our partners, not external shareholders - and we don’t intend to pay a bonus this year.

“Whenever we make any money, it is invested in our partners, our business and charitable giving.”

Last month, John Lewis announced that 1,500 head office jobs are to be cut, as it tries to return to profitability. And it did have to shut stores during this year’s lockdowns.

Overall, the one-year suspension of business rates for retailers, pubs, restaurants, cinemas, gyms and hotels was expected to cost £10bn (before supermarkets bowed to pressure and started handing their share back).

Real estate adviser Altus Group has calculated that £3bn went to ‘essential retailers’ - such as superstores, supermarkets, fascia convenience stores and food warehouses.

They kept trading through the pandemic (and often kept paying dividends too).

Robert Hayton, Head of Property Tax at Altus Group, adds:

“It is crucial that Government ensures future support is targeted to where it is needed including funding the Valuation Office so it can expedite settlement of the tens of thousands of formal Challenges against business rates assessments that must now be reduced to reflect the impact of COVID ahead of next year’s bills.”

Retail analyst Nick Bubb writes:

Well, the news that Tesco wants to repay the Business Rates relief it received from the Government soon bounced Sainsbury and Morrisons into following suit, but the decision by Sainsbury to retain the Argos relief is a possible route that mixed Food/Non-Food retailers like Marks & Spencer and the John Lewis Partnership could go down…

Sainsbury’s CEO Simon Roberts says it is “fair and right” to return the business rates relief, given that “regional restrictions” are likely to remain in place for some time.

Roberts also hopes that businesses that were forced to close in the second Covid-19 lockdown will benefit from this move:

“We have been proud to play our part in feeding the nation in this extraordinary year and every one of our colleagues has gone above and beyond to support each other, our customers and our communities. While we have incurred significant costs in keeping colleagues and customers safe, food and other essential retailers have benefited from being able to open throughout.

With regional restrictions likely to remain in place for some time, we believe it is now fair and right to forgo the business rates relief that we have been given on all Sainsbury’s stores. We are very mindful that non-essential retailers and many other businesses have been forced to close again in the second lockdown and we hope that this goes some way towards helping them.