The US job data is better than expected, but that can hardly brighten the mood on the stock markets. Investors are concerned about the continuing rise in coronavirus infections in the United States. In addition, a decision by the highest court causes reluctance on the markets.
Fearing a backlash in the recovery of the economy from coronavirus episodes, much of Wall Street's investors pulled out this Thursday. The US standard value index Dow Jones closed 1.4 percent lower at 25,706 points. The broad S&P 500 lost 0.6 percent to 3152 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq, on the other hand, advanced 0.5 percent to a record 10,547 points, driven by price gains at Amazon Microsoft and Apple.
Investors were concerned about the continuing rise in coronavirus infections. "A second major pandemic wave would have a devastating effect on the already struggling economies," warned analyst Ricardo Evangelista from the brokerage firm ActivTrades. "The governments play with great commitment." They loosened the restrictions, while the further development of the virus crisis is unclear.
Against this background, leisure and tourism values, which would suffer particularly severely if the restrictions were tightened again, flew out of the depots again. The shares of the hotel chains Marriott and Hilton, the airlines American, Delta and United Airlines as well as the casino operators Las Vegas Sands, MGM and Wynn fell by up to 7.2 percent. Cisco Systems' shares rose by around two percent after Morgan Stanley upgraded the network equipment supplier to "overweight".
US Supreme Court wipes off Trump
"The mood was strained anyway, but was given another blow by the Supreme Court's slump for US President Donald Trump," said Neil Wilson, chief analyst at online broker Markets.com. The judges ruled that Trump must hand over his tax documents. "They could be interesting for voters." Trump's polls are already in the basement because of his approach to the virus crisis. If his democratic challenger Joe Biden wins the November presidential election, stock marketers expect stricter regulation and higher taxes.
The somewhat better-than-expected US job data hardly contributed to brightening the mood. Last week, 1.31 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits, up from 1.41 million the week before. The decline was larger than expected. "The economic recovery is not going as smoothly as this data suggests," said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at brokerage firm AvaTrade. The dynamic seems to be weakening. A renewed sell-off on the stock exchanges as in March is not expected, said financial market expert Edward Park from asset manager Brooks Macdonald. "If the situation in the US worsens and there is another kind of lockdown, the Fed's additional security purchases will become more likely."
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