Shares, oil prices sink after Trump tests positive for virus
US stock futures and Asian shares fell Friday after President Donald Trump said he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the new coronavirus.
The near future contracts for both S&P 500 and the Dow industrials dropped almost 2% but were trading 1.2% lower several hours later. Oil prices tumbled about 3%.
Trump tweeted news of his test outcomes just hours following the White House announced that senior aide Hope Hicks had come down with the virus after traveling with the president many times this week.
The positive test reading for the first choice of the world's greatest economy heaps uncertainty onto an evergrowing pile of unknowns investors are grappling with, first included in this how it might affect the November 3 election and American policies on trade, tariffs and many other issues beyond then.
"To say it potentially could be a huge deal is an understatement," Rabobank said in a commentary. "Anyway, everything now requires a backseat to the most recent incredible twist in this US election campaign."
A statement issued by Trump's doctor saying both he and his wife were well and that he would continue his duties seemed to calm the markets' reaction.
Germany's DAX quit 0.6% to 12,649.29 and the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.6% to 4,796.97. Britain's FTSE 100 slipped 0.5% to 5,850.86.
Trading in Asia was thin, with markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong closed. The Nikkei 225 index shed strong early gains, losing 0.7% to 23,029.90 following the Tokyo STOCK MARKET resumed trading following an all day long outage because of a technical failure.
Reports that japan government is preparing new stimulus measures to greatly help the economy get over a prolonged downturn worsened by the coronavirus pandemic provided only a temporary lift. Prices fell further after Trump's announcement.
Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 slipped 1.4% to 5,791.50. Shares in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia also fell.
On Thursday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended your day 0.5% higher, at 3,380.80, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% to 27,816.90 and the Nasdaq composite rose 1.4% to 11,326.51, as big tech-oriented stocks propped up the marketplace, much because they have through the pandemic.
Such big swings have grown to be routine as investors evaluate likelihood of a deal on Capitol Hill to send more money to Americans, restore jobless benefits for laid-off workers and deliver assistance to airlines and other industries hit particularly hard by the pandemic.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continued their talks on Thursday, but no breakthrough arrived before stock trading ended on Wall Street. Instead, there have been only hopes which were periodically raised and dashed as government officials took turns criticizing one another.
"Things remain fluid; most of us know what is at stake if this deal will not proceed through before markets sundown, it really is unlikely to be pretty ugly," Stephen Innes of Axi said in a commentary.
Beyond potential political developments, investors will be watching for job figures due out Friday. Data released Thursday painted a mixed picture for the economy, with one report showing the amount of personnel filing for unemployment benefits the other day fell to 837,000 from 873,000. That was significantly less than economists expected, but incredibly high weighed against before the pandemic.
With airlines and other major companies announcing layoffs and furloughs, another round of monetary aid from Congress sometimes appears as crucial. Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have worked effectively together in the past, assisting to drive through the prior monetary rescue approved by Congress in March. However the country's deepening partisan divide has stymied progress, with the presidential election only about a month away.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury was steady at 0.67%.
US benchmark crude lost $1.12 to $37.60 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It quit $1.50 to $38.72 on Thursday. Brent crude, the international standard, lost $1.20 to $39.73 per barrel.
The dollar weakened to 105.21 Japanese yen from 105.54 yen. The euro weakened to $1.1724 from $1.1747.
