U.S.-China trade rhetoric could be propping up Wall Street
Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) futures are looking to close the week out on a positive note. Wall Street is so far brushing off the Labor Department's non-farms payroll report that showed 20.5 million jobs were lost in April due to the COVID-19 pandemic -- sending the unemployment rate to 14.7% -- its highest spike in the post-World War II era. The "real" unemployment rate surged to 22.8%, but for as bad as the numbers are, they came in under projections of 21.5 million lost jobs and an unemployment rate of 16%.
Elsewhere, futures on the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) and S&P 500 Index (SPX) are also confidently above fair value, likely boosted by news overnight that the U.S. and China intend to cooperate on January's phase one trade deal, even amid the coronavirus outbreak.
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Stocks in Asia closed higher today, following reports that top trade negotiators in Washington and Beijing agreed to cooperate, promising to create favorable conditions for a phase one trade deal. In response, Japan's Nikkei grabbed a 2.6% win, Hong Kong's Hang Seng moved 1% higher, China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.8%, and the Kospi in South Korea added 0.9%.
In Europe, markets are also seeing gains, with optimism boosted by the aforementioned U.S.-China trade buzz and the anticipation of the U.S. jobs report. London's FTSE 100 has tacked on 1.4% so far, while the French CAC 40 is up 1%, and the DAX in Germany has risen 1.1%.