The Dow Jones now could bounce back after a week of COVID-19 losses on Capitol Hill. The pressure was due to fleeting hope about stimulus negotiations between the White House and Democratic leaders.
While U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed his willingness to increase his offer to Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that he didn't plan to introduce a large fiscal stimulus bill on the Senate floor. More below on what's moving the Dow today...
Here are the numbers from Thursday for the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq:
Index
Previous Close
Point Change
Percentage Change
Dow Jones
28,494.20
-19.80
-0.07
S&P 500
3,483.34
-5.33
-0.15
Nasdaq
11,713.87
-54.86
-0.47
Now here are what I think will be the most important market events and stocks on Friday morning.
The Top Stock Market Stories for Monday
COVID-19 is back leading the headlines as cases continue to rise. According to Johns Hopkins University, U.S. cases have surpassed 7.91 million. While the United States has led the world in cases, India is fast-approaching a pace that would see it surpass America. Also, across the Atlantic, the European Central Bank said that it is considering a new round of fiscal stimulus due to the recent surge in cases. Europe now counts 7.4 million cases, according to the World Health Organization. The ECB is considering even lower interest rates, asset purchase programs, and more, according to ECB President Christine Lagarde.
Meanwhile, hedge fund manager Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates has raised concerns about a report that select hedge funds received a different set of facts about COVID-19 at the onset of the outbreak. According to a New York Times report, members of the Trump administration held private meetings with board members of the Hoover Institution on Feb. 24. During that meeting, the White House's chief economic advisor provided some special insight into the spread of the virus. Chanos has said that "pitchforks and torches are undervalued" based on this report.
Stocks to Watch Today: TACO, TWTR
Shares of Del Taco RestaurantsInc. (NASDAQ: TACO) popped more than 9% after the Mexican restaurant giant reported earnings after the bell Thursday. The company reported earnings per share of $0.16 in Q3. That figure topped Wall Street expectations by $0.06. In addition, the firm reported same-store sales growth of 6.5%. This is a very underrated restaurant, and now I'm very hungry.
Finally, Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) is in focus after the social media giant had an outage on Thursday. According to various reports, the social media app was down for at least an hour in the evening. The company said it was due to internal programming changes it had completed on its systems. That said, Twitter has been under scrutiny this week after the company censored an article in the New York Post about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's son and his dealings in Ukraine.
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Garrett Baldwin is a globally recognized research economist, financial writer, consultant, and political risk analyst with decades of trading experience and degrees in economics, cybersecurity, and business from Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Indiana University, and Northwestern.