dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

'Futures, Global Markets Soar For Second Day As Virus Fears

Fade, Dollars Slides

Tue, 04/07/2020 - 08:10

"At 0730 ET, Dow e-minis were up 816 points, or 3.7%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 83.75 points, or 3.1% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 235 points, or 2.9%. Tuesday's rally followed a 7% surge on Monday after the governors of New York and New Jersey said their states, hot spots of the COVID-19 disease, were showing early signs of a “flattening” of the outbreak. But they warned against complacency as the nationwide death toll approached 11,000 and global infections surged past 1.3 million.

“Even if we have reached the peak, the lockdowns around the globe may be extended for a while more as governments may want to ensure that the virus has indeed been contained,” said Charalambos Pissouros, senior market analyst at JFD Group. “We believe that the global economy may start recovering well after the peak of the pandemic.”

Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 1.3 million people and killed over 74,000, and though the numbers are still rising in many highly-populated countries, some tentative improvements have given hope. In hardest-hit Italy and Spain, authorities have started looking ahead to easing lockdowns after steady falls in fatality rates. In the United States too, the daily number of deaths in the country’s worst-affected area, New York, has also shown signs of steadying.

There was an added boost from commodity markets as oil climbed nearly 3% on supply cut hopes, after Russian Tass reported that OPEC+ is discussing an output cut for 3 months, while currency markets also came alive as a tumbling dollar saw the euro race out of a six-session rut of falls. Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil and Apache Corp rose between 4% and 10% in premarket trading as oil prices rallied amid hopes the world’s main oil producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia would agree to cut output at a meeting on Thursday.

Oilfield services firm Halliburton Co jumped 7.3% after saying it was cutting about 350 jobs in Oklahoma and that its executives would reduce their salaries.

European stocks also put in another healthy start with Eurostoxx 50 and DAX rallying ~3-3.5%, with various European markets entering a 20% bull market from the lows. Travel and Leisure stocks lead, gaining over 7%, autos and insurance names join in the outperformance. S&P futures rise 2.5%. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index also advanced, led by travel and leisure shares, after the rate of new infections slowed in France and in Italy, the original epicenter of the continent’s outbreak. The Eurogroup of finance ministers within the single euro zone currency bloc are scheduled to meet later on Tuesday, and analysts expect more joint action to help prop up the economies of member states.

“A day does not a trend make, a week does not a trend make… but we think the market is bottoming out,” said Jeff Mortimer, Director of Investment Strategy at BNY Mellon Wealth Management. “We are trying to get clients to understand that (in market performance terms) better times ahead can come more quickly then you expected.”

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks also gained, led by energy and IT, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Index rising more than 2% after adding nearly 3% a day earlier. Most markets in the region were up, with India's S&P BSE Sensex Index gaining 7.4% and Thailand's SET rising 6.8%, while Jakarta Composite dropped 0.7%. Japan’s Nikkei followed up Wall Street’s 7% surge on Monday with a 2% jump as its government promised a near $1 trillion stimulus package - equal to a fifth of its GDP. The Topix gained 2%, with Artra and TORQ Inc rising the most.

Chinese stocks climbed and the yuan strengthened in the wake of further targeted stimulus by policy makers as Shanghai reopened after a long weekend with Liaoning SG Automotive Group and V V Food & Beverage posting the biggest advances. China said it didn’t have any new deaths for the first time since the pandemic emerged.

"Optimism on the direction of equity markets will be difficult to maintain until we see more clarity on the corporate earnings outlook and until the dispersion of analysts’ forecasts subsides,” Marija Veitmane, a multi-asset strategist at State Street Global Markets, wrote in a note.

In FX, the dollar, which has been soaking up safe-haven flows for weeks, slipped against most major currencies. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell as much as 0.8% to the lowest since April 2 as the greenback fell against all Group- of-10 peers."

moar:

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/futures-global-markets-soar-second-day-virus-fears-fade-dollars-slides

Trump taunts media as mutual disgust reaches new depths

Howard Kurtz | Fox News

6 hours ago

"President Trump found something to briefly celebrate Monday, some bad news for what are emerging as his biggest detractors during the virus crisis: the media.

“Advertising in the Failing New York Times is WAY down. Washington Post is not much better,” he tweeted. “I can’t say whether this is because they are Fake News sources of information, to a level that few can understand, or the Virus is just plain beating them up. Fake News is bad for America!”

Whatever the merits of Trump’s dissatisfaction with the two papers, it’s clear that advertising has plunged because some companies are shut down while others are slashing spending while most of their customers are stranded at home.

As America’s coronavirus death toll exceeds 10,000, two clashing narratives have come to define the president’s handling of the pandemic. Trump is courageously leading the country with a disruptive approach despite the naysayers, according to his supporters, or, from a press perspective, he is royally botching the emergency because of severe character limitations."

MOAR:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-taunts-media-as-mutual-disgust-reaches-new-depths