News

After the close, streaming giant Netflix announced it added 15m new subscribers for the first quarter, beating expectations with the boom in numbers starting in mid-March – as one of the very few businesses to benefit from the global covid-19 pandemic.

Energy stocks fell as West Texas Crude Oil futures expiring Tuesday plunged to a negative value for the first time ever, meaning that people are being paid to accept barrels of oil, while June prices fell 4% to US$20 a barrel.

As we mentioned last week, the spotlight will be on corporate profit announcements this week, with some big names reporting in the US, including Amazon and Netflix. 

The rally in big technology names has been huge, with the Nasdaq 100 index (100 biggest technology stocks in the US) now flat for the year. In contrast the Russell 2000 index (the next 2000 companies on Wall Street after the 500 largest) is still down -30

Markets around the world have rebounded strongly and quickly since the March slump, the US market S&P 500 index is up +27% from its trough and now down “only” -16% from February’s all time high.

Global markets were down overnight with the US market (S&P 500 -2.2%) falling after the release of weak retail, manufacturing and homebuilding data, which added to concerns over a global recession.

Corporate America launches into what is expected to be a painful quarterly earnings season this week due to the coronavirus pandemic.

We expect markets to remain volatile. A rebound in oil prices recently had helped, however oil slumped in late trade as short term demand is still questioned despite the possibility of Saudis and Russian cutting production.

Global markets were mixed overnight with the US market (S&P 500 +3.4%) adding to its rally as Bernie Sanders dropped out from the Presidential race -the market saw political and economic concerns from his far left policies.