OPEC agreed to cut oil output by an extra 1.5 million bpd, biggest cut since 2008 crisis

US Markets: Broader indices in the United States traded in red - particularly, the S&P 500 index traded 111.60 points or 3.57% lower at 3,018.51, Dow Jones Industrial Average Index contracted by 990.88 points or 3.66% lower at 26,099.98, and the technology benchmark index Nasdaq Composite traded lower at 8,739.22, down by 278.87 points or 3.09% against its previous day close (at the time of writing, before the U.S market close at 2:54 PM ET).

 US News: On 5^th March 2020, the US Stock markets opened in the red, as Covid-19 fears in California meant that the state’s productivity went significantly down on the previous day, while output is also expected to take a hit in the coming days as tech firms ask employees to take mandatory off. On the back of a slight decline of activity in its production facilities in China again, Apple stocks were down by around 1.4 per cent. The International Air Transport Association (ITA) also reported that the travel and tourism industry of the United States of America is expected to take a US $113 billion hit in terms of airline revenue, which led to shares of American Airlines Group Inc, Delta Air Lines and Spirit Airlines fall off the cliff by shedding more than 3 per cent in values. Abercrombie & Fitch shares accelerated by 4.8 per cent, driven by forecast for FY 2020 better than what the Wall Street had previously expected. As fears of virus on various other cruise ships across the world increased, stocks of US based cruise operators also went down. During this chaos, Carnival Corp dropped 3.7 per cent, Royal Caribbean Cruises shares were down by 4 per cent while Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings stock went down by 4.9 per cent.

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S&P 500 (SPX)

Top Performers*:Â Kroger Co, Newmont Corporation, and Campbell Soup Co are top gainers and increased by 1.74%, 1.55% and 0.61% respectively.

Worst Performers*: Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, Marathon Petroleum Corp, and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd traded in red zone and contracted by 11.14%, 10.42% and 9.73% respectively.

NASDAQ Composite (IXIC)

Top Performers*: Dixie Group Inc, Heat Biologics Inc, and Tiziana Life Sciences Plc traded in green zone and zoomed up by 36%, 35.37% and 23.73% respectively.

Worst Performers*: GreenPro Capital Corp, Seanergy Maritime Holdings Corp, and Comtech Telecommunications Corp traded in red zone and slumped by 22.48%, 18.75% and 15.31% respectively.

Worst Performing Sectors*: Telecommunication services (down 1.51%), Utilities (down 1.59%) and Healthcare (down 1.76%).

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI)

Poor Performers*: Boeing Co, Dow Inc, and JPMorgan Chase & Co shares plunged by 5.25%, 5.06% and 5.06% respectively.

European Markets: Broader equity benchmark index FTSE 100 closed the Thursday’s trading session 110.16 points or 1.62% lower at 6,705.43, the FTSE 250 index traded last 419.70 points or 2.13% lower at 19,323.13, and the FTSE All-Share Index ended the session 63.89 points or 1.68% lower at 3,731.49 respectively. Also, European equity benchmark index STOXX 600 closed Thursday’s trading session with 5.54 points or 1.43 per cent lower at 380.76.

European News: In economic news, Deutsche Bank today made a forecast that the British economy could be growing this year at 0.5 per cent. The forecast which has put worries of a serious recession in the minds of many was previously estimated to be 1.00 per cent. The economists at Deutsche Bank while commenting on the forecast stated that the spread of the Coronavirus epidemic is single handily responsible for this growth forecast as the country grapples to come to terms with the massive supply chain bottlenecks caused by the epidemic spread. The bank in a statement also envisages that a rate cut by the Bank of England could very well be on the cards soon.

London Stock Exchange

Top Performers*: KIER GROUP PLC (KIE), SPIRENT COMMUNICATIONS PLC (SPT) and DIALIGHT PLC (DIA) are top gainers and increased by 34.38%, 8.23% and 8.22% respectively.

Nastiest Performers*: CAPITA PLC (CPI), AMIGO HOLDINGS PLC (AMGO) and CINEWORLD GROUP PLC (CINE) plunged by 37.58%, 29.84% and 17.73% respectively.

FTSE 100 Index

  5 days FTSE 100 Index Performance (March-05-2020), before the market closed (Source: TR)

Top Gainers*: PEARSON PLC (PSON), ADMIRAL GROUP PLC (ADM) and MORRISON(WM.) SUPERMARKETS PLC (MRW) traded in green zone and leapt up by 0.95%, 0.64% and 0.52% respectively.

Top Slackers*: EVRAZ PLC (EVR), ITV PLC (ITV) and RIO TINTO PLC (RIO) were among the beaten down stocks and plunged by 12.64%, 11.20% and 7.99% respectively.

Shares with high volume*: (LLOY) LLOYDS BANKING GROUP PLC; (HSBA) HSBC HLDGS PLC; (BARC) BARCLAYS PLC.

Sectors in the negative zone*: Basic Materials (down 5.54%), Consumer Cyclicals (down 3.15%), and Financials (down 2.59%).

Currency Rates*: GBP/USD and EUR/GBP were trading at 1.2964 and 0.8660, respectively.

Bond Yields*: U.S 10-Year Treasuries yield was hovering at 0.917%, and the UK 10-Year Government Bond yield was trading at 0.312 %, respectively.

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*At the time of writing