(14 September 2020)DAILY MARKET BRIEF 1:US Index Futures Gain Over 1%
US equities eye recovery after a disastrous week. At the time of writing, the futures on all three benchmark indexes have gained over 1%, pointing to a positive open of the week. Nasdaq might lead today’s rally, as its futures have increased by 1.42%.
Last week, the S&P 500 index fell 2.5% despite the Wednesday rally. It was the worst weekly performance since June and the first time since May when the benchmark index was bearish in two consecutive weeks.
The market is now bullish on vaccine hopes and several high-profile partnerships and acquisitions. Besides this, investors hope that Republicans and Democrats would finally reach consensus on a new stimulus to address the damage caused by the pandemic.
Markets reacted positively on the news that Nvidia is buying chip maker Arm Holdings from SoftBank for a sum of $40 billion, which will be paid in cash and stock. However, the deal has yet to be approved by regulators in the US, China, and the UK.
Elsewhere, TikTok parent ByteDance, which is based in China, gave up talks to sell the video-sharing app to Microsoft and considers a partnership with Oracle instead. ByteDance is desperate to find a bridge to the US market after President Donald Trump said that it would ban the app if it isn’t sold to a US company.
Asian stocks are bullish on Monday, leveraging the increasing hopes that a COVID-19 vaccine will be available very soon. On Saturday, British drugmaker AstraZeneca announced that it had resumed phase 3 trials of its vaccine after previously halting them due to a confirmed adverse reaction. The company, which has developed the candidate vaccine with the University of Oxford, got the nod from the UK Medicines Health Regulatory Authority.
Yesterday, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that the company’s vaccine, which is developed with German drugmaker BioNTech, might share key data from its late-stage trials with the US Food and Drug Administration by the end of next month. If Pfizer gets the green light, it could roll out the vaccine by the end of the year.
At the time of writing, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.67%. The country’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party will vote in a new leader later today, with Yoshihide Suga being the main favorite.
South Korea’s KOSPI has surged 1.18%, and in Australia’s ASX 200 has increased by 0.59%.
China’s Shanghai Composite has gained 0.26%, and the SZSE Component has added 0.12% after surging over 1% earlier in the session. Investors will focus on Chinese industrial production and retail sales data that will be released tomorrow.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index is up 0.62%. Elsewhere, India’s Nifty 50 is up 0.62% as well.
