U.S. stock futures dropped lower on Friday after President Trump disclosed he and his wife tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.
President via his Twitter Feed said, “Tonight, @FLOTUSand I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
Futures for the S&P 500 lost about 0.39% after such sensitive news was released to the public, expanding earlier losses, while U.S Treasury yields remained broadly unchanged.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost about 0.15%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index (AXJO) fe0.68% as a decline in oil and copper prices weighed on the resources sector.
What it means: The world’s most powerful political leader testing positive to the COVID-19 virus, which could trigger a new wave of market price swings across the spectrum as global investors get set for a hotly-contested presidential election in November.
Futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq (NQc1) also fell 0.4% in Asian trading. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield changed at 0.6709%.
Quick fact: American Stock futures are simply standardized contracts that global traders use in purchasing or selling the U.S stocks at a future date. This means that the U.S stock futures give an insight into what global investors see before the market opens, or after it closes.
In an explanatory note to Nairametrics, Stephen Innes, Chief Global Market Strategist at Axi spoke on other fundamentals, moving U.S stock futures prices, by saying;
“US equities scratched out another gain overnight after recovering from intraday losses as the stalemate persist on fiscal stimulus negotiations.
“House Democrat Leader Pelosi indicated a House vote would proceed despite being “still far apart” from Republicans.
“That House vote symbolizes the stalemate: without Republican agreement, it has no chance of passing the Senate but gives Democrats a platform for the Presidential election.
“Things remain fluid; we all know what is at stake if this deal does not go through before markets sundown, it is unlikely to be pretty ugly.”
