New data and statistics report that the virus
outbreak situation is being controlled with effective results in Spain, Italy,
and New York. With this report, global stocks and US futures started to show
positive trends on Monday. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 and Japan’s Nikkei 225
(N225) rose by more than 4%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (HSI) gained 2.2%.
European markets rallied on early Monday trading as well with the FTSE 100
(UKX) rising by more than 3% in the opening markets, while Germany’s DAX (DAX)
surged 4.2% and France’s CAC 40 (CAC40) surged by 3.5%.
The U.S. futures also showed upwards trends in the Monday market with Dow
(INDU) futures gaining 800 points or 3.8%. S&P 500 (SPX) futures were also
up by 3.8% and Nasdaq (COMP) futures rose by almost 4.2%. With the U.S jobless
claims showing a number of over 700,000 lost jobs in March, the US stocks were
headed for a further low on Friday, but with the recent trends, they are poised
to make a turnaround from the terrible fall in the last week’s market.
While the governor of New York State mentioned that it is is too early to tell
if the state has passed its peak, the lockdown has been able to gain results
and there has been a drop in the number of deaths in the New York state.
Oil prices slip due to a volatile oil
market
Crude oil prices slipped again as the price war negotiation meeting was
postponed by Russia and OPEC. The meeting was also supposed to address the
issue of a supply deficit, which has lead to a record low in oil futures in
decades. The oil market was flooded with cheap crude when Russia and Saudi
Arabia engaged in a price war in March and abandoned production caps. Several
energy stocks and American oil companies took the effect of the crashing oil
prices that fell to its lowest in 18 years.
US crude fell as much as 11% to $25.28 a barrel overnight, while the
global benchmark Brent Crude fell by 0.9% to $33.73 a barrel.
As the market awaits the coronavirus to pass, a pandemic that has led to
unimaginable havoc in the market, investors also look out at the oil prices
hoping for the volatility to surpass.
