Oil Majors Lifted UK’s Commodity-Heavy FTSE 100 Index on Trump’s Tweet, Shrugging Off Virus Fears

US Markets: Broader indices in the United States traded in green - particularly, the S&P 500 index traded 45.60 points or 1.85% higher at 2,516.10, Dow Jones Industrial Average Index surged by 399.46 points or 1.91% higher at 21,342.97, and the technology benchmark index Nasdaq Composite traded higher at 7,459.36, up by 98.78 points or 1.34% against its previous day close (at the time of writing, before the U.S market close at 11:00 AM ET).

US News: The Wall Street had a choppy rough session in early trade, albeit rebounded quickly on Thursday, post divulging a hysterical count of 6.6 million jobless claims filed in the last week (ending March 28, 2020). The unemployment claims have smashed all the records, since companies continue to shut down. While oil prices spiked (U.S. crude futures WTI traded significantly higher by around 25%), post the prediction coined by President Donald Trump on disastrous oil price war to be pacified soon with Russia and Saudi Arabia jointly will be cutting crude oil production by around 10 million barrels. Consequently, the oil Stocks surged - ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum and Apache Corp, gained by over 4%, 6% and 11% respectively (at the time of writing). Conversely, with prolonged grounding circumstances, Boeing announced voluntary buyout offers for its employees and their stock was down by about 1.63%. Meanwhile, American Airlines and Southwest fell around 2% after unveiling about withdrawing USD 2.7 billion and USD 2.3 billion respectively, from revolving credit facility on Wednesday and now both seeking the government bailout. On the other hand, Walgreens Boots Alliance plunged around 6%, post releasing their trading update for Q2 FY2020. While Stanley Black & Decker was up about 1.5%, after withdrawing first-quarter guidance, slashing non-essential staffing and indirect spending along with the suspension of M&A activities. Likewise, Ford’s shares slightly rose around 0.34%, despite announcing their 12.5% auto sales plunge in the first quarter of 2020. In contrast, Ross stores was slightly down by 0.31% after updating that they are furloughing majority of its employee base amidst the shutdown scenario. The Zoom video tumbled over 10% due to privacy concerns. As a sigh of relief for banks, Federal Reserve intending to ramp up lending and smoothen turmoil in the Treasury market.

S&P 500 (SPX)

Top Performers*: Apache Corp, Diamondback Energy Inc, and Occidental Petroleum Corp shares increased by 13.43%, 10.05% and 9.59% respectively.

Non Performers*: Perrigo Company PLC, Constellation Brands Inc and McKesson Corp shares decreased by 9.04%, 8.79% and 7.56% respectively.

NASDAQ Composite (IXIC)

Top Performers*: Cellect Biotechnology Ltd, MicroVision Inc, and Neptune Wellness Solutions Inc shares expanded by 144.06%, 36.64% and 30.39% respectively.

Worst Performers*: Luckin Coffee Inc, Golar LNG Partners LP and Bionano Genomics Inc shares plunged by 78.55%, 52.34% and 29.92% respectively.

Top Performing Sectors*: Energy (+2.33%), Basic Materials (+0.92%), and Consumer Cyclicals (+0.65%).

Top Worst Sectors*: Consumer Non-Cyclicals (-1.94%), Healthcare (-0.08%), and Industrials (-0.04%).

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI)

Top Performers*: Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp and Dow Inc, are the top gainer and Increased by 4.42%, 3.01% and 2.55%, respectively.

Worst Performers*: Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, United Technologies Corp, and UnitedHealth Group Inc are top laggards and decreased by 5.35%, 1.88% and 1.48% respectively.

European Markets: The London’s broader equity benchmark index FTSE 100 traded at 25.65 points or 0.47% higher at 5,480.22, the FTSE 250 index snapped at 110.40 points or 0.76% lower at 14,436.80, and the FTSE All-Share Index ended 7.42 points or 0.25% higher at 2,998.54, respectively. Another European equity benchmark index STOXX 600 ended up by 1.31 points or 0.42 per cent at 312.08. Among other major European indices, DAX index closed the session at 9,570.82, up by 26.07 points or 0.27%; CAC 40 index surged marginally by 13.72 points or 0.33% and ended the trading session at 4,220.96.

European News: London and European stocks surged following the oil price recovery with hopes of a treaty in the Saudi-Russia oil price war. Energy majors - BP and Royal Dutch Shell soared around 6% and 9%, respectively while the OPEC announced that its daily basket oil price fell to $16.87 a barrel on 1st April 2020. Thereupon, OGUK (Britain’s oil and gas body) urging the government to deploy financial aid schemes, considering price war and coronavirus crisis. On the other hand, asset managers Schroders and BlackRock have paused trading on UK real estate funds in absence of a fair price for their assets. Adjacently, the German government is planning to hold stake in Lufthansa airlines and support them with billions of euros. Meanwhile, The Financial Conduct Authority has frozen three-month payment on loans and credit card debt for giving relaxation to households. Also, German retailer Aldi witnessing massive demand for pasta, which they plan to source from Italy. While the British consortium (four engineering companies) and Formula One are anticipating producing over 1,500 ventilators a week from next week. Furthermore, Bank of America has sharply slashed European growth forecast to 7.6% economic contraction from 1% expansion in 2020. After that, British Airways is considering suspension of 32,000 employees while IAG ceased its final dividend, to preserve 337 million euros. On the other hand, British life insurance company, Prudential has set up a joint venture with Chinese conglomerate CITIC Group as ‘Prudential-CITIC Asset Management Co’. Among the stocks trending, Burford Capital’s stock fell over 5% with its update regarding short-term disruption in business due to coronavirus. Similarly, Centrica PLC plunged about 8.33%, post suspending dividend and deferring plans for disinvesting Sprint Energy. Hays PLC declined over 8%, post releasing proposal of placing ordinary shares for liquidity. And, National Grid PLC dropped about 4% with the pre-close update for full-year results.

London Stock Exchange

Top Performers*: DP EURASIA N.V. (DPEU), TED BAKER PLC (TED) and WOOD GROUP (JOHN) PLC (WG.) are top movers and rose by 18.48%, 13.10% and 11.44% respectively.

Worst Performers*: CARNIVAL PLC (CCL), ASTON MARTIN LAGONDA GLOBAL HOLDING (AML) and BAKKAVOR GROUP PLC (BAKK) plunged by 20.23%, 15.06% and 13.89% respectively.

FTSE 100 Index

5 days FTSE 100 Index Performance (April-02-2020), before the market closed (Source: TR)

Best Gainers*: ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC 'B' (RDSB), ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC 'A' (RDSA) and HIKMA PHARMACEUTICALS PLC (HIK) expanded by 8.53%, 8.44% and 4.86% respectively.

Non Performers*: CARNIVAL PLC (CCL), ROLLS-ROYCE HOLDINGS PLC (RR.) and CENTRICA PLC (CNA) plunged by 19.67%, 10.59% and 9.78% respectively.

Shares traded with high-level volume*: (LLOY) LLOYDS BANKING GROUP PLC; (BARC) BARCLAYS PLC, and (VOD) VODAFONE GROUP PLC.

Top Sectors traded in the positive zone*: Energy (+6.91%), Consumer Non-Cyclicals (+0.74%), and Basic Materials (+0.69%).

Top Sectors traded in the negative zone*: Utilities (-3.55%), Consumer Cyclicals (-3.00%) and Financials (-2.68%).

Forex Rates*: GBP/USD and EUR/GBP were hovering at 1.2375 and 0.8765, respectively.

Bond Yields*: U.S 10-Year Treasuries yield was tilting at 0.631%, and the UK 10-Year Government Bond yield was hovering at 0.341%, respectively.

*At the time of writing