The developments add to uncertainty in the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections next month
US stocks climbed on Thursday, led by tech giants like Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft. Equities were driven by the hope of another round of fiscal stimulus being passed by Congress ahead of their upcoming recess. Also, on the positive side, initial weekly jobless claims fell to 837,000 last week, better than the consensus estimate of 850,000. As a result, the S&P 500 ended the day 0.5% higher, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.4%.
In Asia, markets in South Korea, Shanghai, and Hong Kong remained closed on Friday while the Tokyo Stock Exchange resumed trading after an outage Thursday due to a technical failure. The Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.67% and Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 shed 1.38% as risk aversion re emerged after President Donald Trump said he had tested positive for the coronavirus, adding to uncertainty in the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections next month.
European stocks opened lower as well, with investors continuing to digest the news about Trump’s disease. US stock index futures fell as much as 2% initially but pared their drop throughout the session alongside European stocks. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he will intervene in the Brexit negotiations for the first time since June, which raised some hopes for resolving the existing issues on the deal.
Elsewhere, the dollar rose in an initial reaction to Trump’s tweet but trimmed its gains as investor panic started to recede gradually. EURUSD briefly dipped below 1.17 and has settled marginally above this level since then, struggling to overcome the 20-DMA that capped yesterday’s bullish attempts. On the data front, Eurozone September preliminary CPI came in at -0.3% versus -0.2% y/y expected. Later in the day, the key US jobs data will affect USD-pairs including EURUSD. If the figures surprise to the upside, the pair could finish the week below 1.17 as dollar demand could accelerate.
