Covid cases and inflation combine for troubling week ahead

ECB president Christine Lagarde and colleagues struggled to convince financial markets that bets on an interest rate hike in 2022 to tame inflation were probably misplaced.
The world economy is approaching the northern hemisphere winter in disarray, unable to shake off the coronavirus crisis amid persisting supply disruptions, soaring prices, and resurgent outbreaks.
Global surveys of purchasing managers this week are likely to point that way. Among the outcomes anticipated by economists are slowing manufacturing and services activity throughout the eurozone and the UK, and only modest improvement in the US.