Wall Street reports show that stocks rose Tuesday, as investors continued to eye states’ reopening strategies and mulled recent corporate earnings results.
Market participants like retail and institutional investors are also eyeing the start of the Federal Reserves Program to purchase corporate debt exchange-traded funds, which commences Tuesday.
Earlier, U.S. equity futures traded lower during the overnight session following a Fox Business Report that the Trump administration was seeking to keep federal employee retirement funds from being invested in Chinese equities, raising speculations that tensions could rise between the two countries.
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The stock market report also showed that on Monday, stocks ended the session mixed, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq modestly positive on the day. Big tech shares outperformed, as investors bet on these companies’ resilience even as the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing measures to contain it remained ongoing. After ending Monday’s session higher, the Nasdaq was up for six straight sessions – its longest winning streak so far in 2020.
In New York, the country’s epicenter of the pandemic, the State Governor, Andrew Cuomo said during a briefing Monday that some parts of the state will be ready to allow businesses reopen operations later in the present week, including construction, retail with curbside pickup, drive-in theaters and certain recreational activities. The reopenings, however, will not flow through the whole of New York City. In a statement on Monday, Mayor Bill De Blasio said the city’s lockdown will likely extend into June.
According to media reports, New York state recorded 1,660 new cases on Sunday alone, for the lowest new case count since mid-March. Its 161 new deaths for the day were the least since the end of March.
In earnings statements and calls, so far for the latest reported quarter, some executives notified a rise in consumer demand for goods and services from the depression experienced in March, indicating hopes that business conditions were becoming at least somewhat less gloomy for some major organisations . These subtle indicators of optimism, however, mostly came alongside massive plunges in quarterly operating results, suggesting a return back to previous levels will take time.
Marriott International (MAR), a company in one of the industries affected adversely by the pandemic, said in an earnings statement Monday that “lodging demand in most of the rest of the world has stabilized, albeit at very low levels,” with occupancy in North America around 20% over the past two weeks. Marriott’s revenue per available room, which measures both room prices and occupancy levels, was down 90% in April.
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Late last week, Uber (UBER) CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said during an earnings call that the ride-hailing company began seeing a sustained pick-up in demand for rides in mid-April, with growth up most substantially in states including Georgia and Texas, which have already begun reopening their economies.
Separately, the CEO of online real estate database Zillow (Z) last week announced during the company’s earnings call that “the real estate market is predominantly open, and it’s clear that we have passed peak fear.”
Source: Yahoo News
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