U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says it is time to retire the expression ‘transitory inflation’, insisting it has been more persistent than first thought. He also adopted a hawkish tone about tapering. Oil prices claw back some of Tuesday’s losses ahead of two days of OPEC output strategy talks. Swiss lender UBS names Sarah Youngwood as its new CFO following the departure of Kirt Gardner. In China, factory activity for the month of November has returned to contractionary territory on the back of slowing demand and rising prices. Meanwhile, France posts its highest number of Covid cases since April as the Omicron variant continues to spread across the continent.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.