T lijkt iets positiever....
Stocks turned positive Thursday after opening lower, as market participants nervously eyed rising coronavirus cases in major regions throughout the country. Meanwhile, a report showed new weekly unemployment insurance claims were worse than expected last week, with the level down just slightly from the prior week.
The S&P 500 and Dow snapped a three-day winning streak by market close Wednesday, with concerns over a jump in coronavirus cases in some major states contributing to declines. However, big tech shares continued to climb and added to their run of outperformance, despite increasing scrutiny from regulators in the U.S. and Europe. Apple’s (AAPL) stock climbed to an all-time intraday high, and ticked slightly higher Thursday.
Travel and leisure stocks including airlines and cruise lines held lower, with increases in new coronavirus cases threatening a smooth reopening process. New cases in Florida jumped to the highest level since the pandemic began, and Texas’s hospitalization rate surged by the most since the beginning of the month. Other states including Arizona, Nevada and Oregon also saw spikes in cases as of Wednesday’s counts, as regions struggled to keep infection rates down with reopenings under way.
Meanwhile, New York City – one of the regions that had been under stay in place orders the longest – signaled it would press ahead with the next phase of its reopening process next week, allowing for outdoor dining and salons to open their doors as the statewide daily infection and death rates fell below 1%.
With virtually every U.S. state now in the process of allowing businesses to reopen, new economic data has begun to reflect a recovery from April’s lows. Wednesday’s batch of economic data showed a strong rebound in the housing market, with mortgage applications for home purchases at a more than 11-year high as of last week. New-home building and building permits for the month of May also rose over April, albeit at a slower pace than consensus economists had expected.