U.S. stock futures dropped lower on Friday after President Trump disclosed he and his wife have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.
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
President via his Twitter Feed said, “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”
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Futures for the S&P 500 lost over 1% 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%.
What this means: The world’s most powerful political leader testing positive to the COVID-19 virus 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.
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Futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq (NQc1) also fell 01% in Asian trading.
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.
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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. And 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.”
