This week has been one of the best turnarounds for Wall Street investors. The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, the broader S&P 500 and the tech-rich NASDAQ Composite have all posted gains as the markets opened on Thursday. This improvement in investor sentiments banks upon the optimism that the number of Coronavirus cases has peaked out.
- The Dow Jones (DJI) had a gap-up opening on Thursday morning. At the time of publication of this article, the Dow was up by 315 points.
- After the first hour of trading, the broader S&P 500 (SPX) Index had gained 1.5% and was at 2790.15 points.
- The NASDAQ Composite Index was up by a modest 0.3%.
A week full of ups and downs for Wall Street
- The US Labour Department (DOL) released fresh figures of the unemployment numbers for the previous week. A staggering 6.6 million people have filed for unemployment benefits. This takes the total of unemployed people to 16.8 million because of the economic shutdown due to the pandemic.
- Oil prices soared almost 7% as fresh news suggesting that OPEC and Russia might have struck a deal to cut Crude oil production. And this cut could be to the tune of 20 million barrels per day.
- Gold is up by 3% as the risk of recession keeps lurking. And Gold has always been considered a safer investment during tough times.
- The US Federal Reserve hinted that it was working on providing another major relief package to the tune of a whopping $2.3 trillion. And if this does take place, it could be one of the most massive liquidity infusions in history.
