Wall Street and European Markets Trade in Red on Virus Pandemic Fears

US Markets: Broader indices in the United States traded in red - particularly, the S&P 500 index traded 107.75 points or 3.23% lower at 3,230.00, Dow Jones Industrial Average Index declined by 964.12 points or 3.33% lower at 28,028.29, and the technology benchmark index Nasdaq Composite traded lower at 9,228.12, down by 348.47 points or 3.64% against its previous day close (at the time of writing, before the U.S market close at 2:05 PM ET).

 US News: On 24^th February 2020, US Stocks opened in the red as pandemic fears took a hold of the Wall Street. Mastercard stocks were down by 6.33 per cent as volume fears loomed large as well. Mastercard’s competitor Visa A shares were also down, as the company’s Asian segment reported dip in both revenue and earnings on the back of the Coronavirus fears. Amazon shares were down by 4.1 per cent, as the company’s trading was found to be dipping primarily because of Coronavirus. PNC Financial stocks were down by 3.21 per cent on the back of investors’ confidence in the company dropping, as per various market analysts. Honeywell shares were also down by 3 per cent, as the company became one of the many fallers on Monday morning.

S&P 500 (SPX)

Top Performers*: Gilead Sciences Inc, Newmont Corporation, and Xcel Energy Inc are top gainers and increased by 6.36%, 3.74% and 1.14% respectively.

Worst Performers*: Advanced Micro Devices Inc, NVIDIA Corp and Microsoft Corp are the top three laggards and decreased by 10.29%, 8.29% and 6.79% respectively.

NASDAQ Composite (IXIC)

Top Performers*: Cocrystal Pharma Inc, NGM Biopharmaceuticals Inc, and Enlivex Therapeutics Limited are top gainers and increased by 50.30%, 34.30% and 33.58% respectively.

Worst Performers*: Aethlon Medical Inc, Epizyme Inc, and Ballard Power Systems Inc are the top three laggards and decreased by 23.64%, 15.55% and 15.53% respectively.

Top Performing Sector*: Utilities (up 0.72%).

Worst Performing Sectors*: Energy (Down 6.00%), Technology (Down 4.97%), Consumer Cyclicals (Down 3.32%).

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI)

Top Performers*: Verizon Communications Inc is top gainer and increased by 0.40% respectively.

Worst Performers*: Microsoft Corp, UnitedHealth Group Inc and Apple Inc. are top laggards and decreased by 5.46%, 5.21% and 5.06% respectively.

European Markets: The London’s broader equity benchmark index FTSE 100 traded at 247.09 points or 3.34% lower at 7,156.83, the FTSE 250 index snapped at 662.33 points or 3.04% lower at 21,117.87, and the FTSE All-Share Index ended 134.58 points or 3.26% lower at 3,998.13 respectively. Another European equity benchmark index STOXX 600 ended down by 16.21 points or 3.79 per cent at 411.86.

European News:  In economic news, the British government is more likely to increase taxes this budget rather than decreasing, if think tank Resolution Foundation is to be believed. The new Finance minister Rishi Sunak is set to deliver his maiden post-Brexit budget next month. The Resolution Foundation has earlier also predicted that the present government could also be looking to spend as much as £1 trillion to spur growth in the country as the country tries to reshare itself after its departure from the European Union.  In business news, Crest Nicholson shares tumbled today by nearly 3.5 per cent in trading on the London Stock exchange as the company reported a disappointing set of numbers, with full-year pre-tax profit of the company falling by as much as 39 per cent to stand at £102.7 million.

London Stock Exchange

Top Performers*: AMIGO HOLDINGS PLC (AMGO), XPS PENSIONS GROUP PLC (XPS) and DIALIGHT PLC (DIA) are top gainers and increased by 5.81%, 3.16% and 3.10% respectively.

Worst Performers*: EASYJET PLC (EZJ), WIZZ AIR HOLDINGS PLC (WIZZ) and KIER GROUP PLC (KIE) are the top three laggards and decreased by 16.08%, 11.80% and 11.74% respectively.

FTSE 100 Index

Five days Price Performance (February-24-2020), before the market closed; Source: Thomson Reuters

Top Gainers*: BUNZL PLC (BNZL), PEARSON PLC (PSON) and POLYMETAL INTERNATIONAL PLC (POLY) are top gainers at the FTSE 100 index and climbed by 1.95%, 1.85% and 0.52% respectively.

Top Laggards*: EASYJET PLC (EZJ), TUI AG (TUI) and ANGLO AMERICAN PLC (AAL) are top three laggards in today’s session and reduced by 16.04%, 10.86% and 9.15% respectively.

Volume Leaders*: (LLOY) LLOYDS BANKING GROUP PLC; (VOD) VODAFONE GROUP PLC; (BARC) BARCLAYS PLC.

Sectors in the negative zone*: Basic Materials (-5.98%), Industrials (-4.67%), and Energy (-4.51%).

Forex Rates*: GBP/USD and EUR/GBP were quoting at 1.2921 and 0.8406, respectively.

Bond Yields*: U.S 10-Year Treasuries yield was quoting at 1.361%, and the UK 10-Year Government Bond yield was trading at 0.537%, respectively.

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*At the time of writing