Wall Street Close: Volatile session ends mixed on cautious optimism
- US equities recovered most of the initial losses to mark minor downside, except for DJI 30.
- Trading sentiment earlier worsened on virus, Brexit woes before vaccine, US stimulus hopes triggered optimism.
- Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.12% while the S&P 500 lost 0.40%.
- The Nasdaq Composite ended 0.10% higher to 12,742.
US stocks began the week’s trading on a negative side before recovering most of the losses to end Monday’s North American session with mixed feelings. While the new strain of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and Brexit were major drawbacks for the markets, vaccine updates and the mood relating to the US covid stimulus helped battle the bears.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI30) added 0.12% to end at 30,216.45 points, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.40% to 3,694.62. Further, the Nasdaq Composite struggled for a clear direction around 12,750 by the day’s end despite moves in tech shares.
While DJI30 and Nasdaq managed to bounce comparatively well, Tesla’s downbeat performance weighed on S&P 500 to mark the 0.40% losses. News that Apple Inc. targets electric car production as early as 2024 probed the current market leader in electric car manufacturing. Also on the tech side were the chatters that Amazon Fire TV exceeded 50 million monthly active users globally.
On a broad scale, the UK PM Boris Johnson announced multiple fresh activity restrictions on tame the recently developed strain of the COVID-19 while Europe, Canada and Turkey are among the major countries that stopped flights from Britain. However, comments from the European Medicines Agency that there’s no evidence that the just developed vaccines won’t work with the new coronavirus variant, followed by Moderna’s optimism that their vaccine can tame the virus, recently favored risk-on.
Brexit talks took a U-turn from the brink of collapsing as UK PM Boris Johnson agreed to provide the final push over fisheries. Recent chatters suggest the European Union (EU) and British policymakers are near to a deal on the key hurdle.
Elsewhere, the US policymakers are readying the official announcement over the virus aid package of around $900 billion.
Looking forward, global market players will keep their eyes on the US virus package and can cheer the passage until updates concerning the virus and Brexit spoil the mood.