| U.S. stocks hit fresh highs. Brexit talks are "blocked," U.K. warns. The World Bank corrects rankings for economies including China. U.S. stocks rose to fresh records and the dollar fell as lawmakers continued to wrangle over a federal-spending deal in Washington. Asian equities looked set for a mixed start. Futures were little changed in Japan and Australia, and dipped in Hong Kong. The S&P 500 climbed for a third day. Treasury yields rose. Elsewhere, the yen held gains ahead of Friday's Bank of Japan policy meeting. Oil climbed to the highest since February. The World Bank corrected two recent reports ranking nations by ease of doing business, adjusting the scores for China and three other countries based on an internal audit following staffers' allegations of "undue pressure" by management to alter ratings. In the 2018 report released in October 2017, China should have been shown dropping seven places, the lender said in a review released on Wednesday. Corrections to the 2020 report affected Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates. In recent years, there have been questions about the integrity of the rankings. Paul Romer quit in 2018 as the World Bank's chief economist after questioning changes to Chile's order in the Doing Business report. The U.S. nuclear weapons agency and at least three states were hacked as part of a suspected Russian cyber-attack that struck several federal government agencies. The hack affected unclassified systems, according to a person familiar with the matter. While President Donald Trump has yet to publicly address the hack, President-elect Joe Biden issued a statement Thursday, and said he intends to make cybersecurity "a top priority". The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the hack poses a "grave risk" to federal, state and local governments as well as critical infrastructure and the private sector. After a year of steadily worsening relations between Beijing and Canberra, China has imposed a raft of trade measures blocking billions of dollars worth of Australian commodities to its biggest trading partner. Some measures are precise, such as anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on barley, allowing Australia to escalate the matter to the World Trade Organization. Others, ranging from verbal notices to bans on individual companies, are less clear-cut. Here's a closer look at the different ways China has put the brakes on Australian imports. Tesla was upgraded by S&P Global Ratings — putting the company two steps from investment-grade — after a recent share sale boosted its cash to record levels. The rater raised Tesla one notch to BB, in line with that of Moody's Investors Service. S&P assigned a positive outlook, saying there is at least a 33% chance that Tesla could be upgraded again in the next year if its competitive advantage "strengthens meaningfully," analysts said in a report Thursday. What We've Been ReadingThis is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours: And finally, here's what Tracy's interested in todayBehold, a rare V-shaped recovery! It comes courtesy of New Zealand, which has done far better than most countries when it comes to controlling the coronavirus and is now enjoying the economic fruits of its containment efforts. New Zealand's GDP jumped 14% in the third quarter, more than the median estimate of 12.9% and the biggest quarterly gain on record. Sell-side analyst notes were filled with talk of V shapes. "Now that's what you call a 'V'," said HSBC. The jump in GDP was enough to "more than retrace an 11% quarter-on-quarter fall in 2Q2020 and confirm a V-shaped recovery," said Goldman. New Zealand "has returned to a pre COVID-19 level of output" with the data confirming a "sharp V-shaped recovery," according to Citi.  There are a couple of points to make on New Zealand's apparent V-ictory. The first is that successful coronavirus containment is an important prelude to, and perhaps a prerequisite for, meaningful economic growth. The second is that such growth doesn't exist in a vacuum. The New Zealand dollar rose after the GDP report, adding to its 5.5% gain over the past three months and begging the question of whether the central bank can avoid an interest rate rise for much longer. In a world where others are still very much in the process of easing, currency appreciation and capital influx are the monetary price one pays for relative economic outperformance. You can follow Tracy Alloway on Twitter at @tracyalloway. | 
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