US Stock Futures Waver As Investors Eye Jobs Data, Coronavirus Numbers

U.S. stock futures wavered Thursday morning, largely recovering from the big market selloff a day earlier when hopes of a quick economic recovery were slammed by a sharp increase in new coronavirus and quarantine numbers.

Polls pointing to Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading over President Donald Trump for the 2020 presidential elections have added to the negative market sentiment, some analysts said.

But the stock futures, which had slided after market hours Wednesday, erased most of the losses by the early hours of Thursday. As of 6.10 a.m. EDT, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were down 0.15%, while the Nasdaq futures were up 0.11%.

Trading on Thursday is expected to be guided by the unemployment data for the week ended June 20. More than 1.3 million U.S. citizens are expected to have filed new jobless claims last week. Preliminary data for May durable goods orders, which is expected to witness a 10.5% increase, will also be released.

For now the coronavirus seems to be driving the economic recovery. California reported more than 7,100 fresh cases of the coronavirus Wedneaday, the highest spike it has witnessed in a single day, and Florida and Texas also saw an increase in new cases at more than 5,500 each.

“The latest coronavirus news is not positive for the stock market which was betting the worst of the pandemic recession was behind us,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG, a global financial services group. “All the hopes of investors looking for a better economy to improve the bottom lines of companies shut down in the recession have been dashed. Forget about the fears of the virus coming back in the fall, the number of new cases and hospitalizations in states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida says the threat is happening right now,” he added.

A 14-day quarantine was imposed by New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on persons arriving from states with high coronavirus numbers. Speaking to Market Watch, James Ragan, director of wealth management research at D.A. Davidson, Seattle, said, “Once you start talking about quarantines, there’s a potential that it will lead to less travel,” he said, adding that this would directly impact recovery.

According to an analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University by CNBC, the 7-day average of daily new COVID-19 cases has gone up by more than 30% as compared to a week ago. As on Thursday 2:25 am EDT, the total cases in the U.S. were more than 2.38 million and deaths were ~ 1,21,969.

The International Monetary Fund has projected a dim view of the global landscape going forward. It sliced its expectations for global economic growth this year to (-) 4.9%, a dip of two percentage points in three months.