Coronavirus: The weekend effect

Delays in administrative work over the weekend may create false optimism on Mondays while catch-up counting on Tuesdays tends to trigger a disappointing surge in cases, FXStreet’s analyst Yohay Elam reports.

Key quotes

“Statistics published on Monday refer to Sunday when some of the administrative teams in hospitals are off for the weekend. Some of the figures are not transmitted to central authorities in time to be reported. That artificially lowers the number of cases.”

“The daily updates provide a significant amount of noise. Seven-day rolling averages clear up the ups and downs of weekends and provide a clever picture.”

“When things calm down, the Non-Farm Payrolls will likely return to its leading position while weekly jobless claims will probably be considered as noise once again, with investors eyeing the four-week moving average.”