NEW YORK (Reuters) – Major US and European stock indexes hit new records Tuesday after China’s chief medical adviser suggested the deadly coronavirus could be finished by April, a prospect that also helped boost crude prices on the hope of a new Chinese demand.
China’s top medical adviser on the epidemic has told Reuters that the number of new cases is decreasing in some places and that the epidemic is expected to peak this month.
But the World Health Organization has warned of a global threat potentially worse than terrorism, and the WHO chief said the world must “wake up and consider this enemy virus as the number one public enemy. “.
WHO said 1,017 people died in China, where there were 42,708 cases.
Gold fell and the dollar returned from a four-month high against the euro as risk appetite improved, which helped boost bond yields. Chinese stocks closed higher for the sixth consecutive session, as the decline in new cases of coronavirus in China has raised investor sentiment around the world.
The MMII .MIWD00000PUS world stock index rose 0.44% to a record level, as did the pan-regional STOXX 600 index in Europe, the blue-chip DAX .GDAXI in Germany and the S & P / TSX Composite. GSPTSE in Canada.
Industrialists from Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq also set records, but compared most of their earnings to media reports that the Federal Trade Commission requested data from Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O) Google Unit, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O).
The FTC has said it will study “hundreds” of small acquisitions by large tech companies and that its special orders are designed to identify areas that need more antitrust action.
The market retreat “has more to do with the midday weakness of large-cap technology names in the history of the FTC,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.
The five companies have contributed significantly to the recent rally in US large-cap stocks.
Investors are not euphoric and the coronavirus has added a healthy dose of skepticism to the market, said Rahul Shah, CEO of Ideal Asset Management in New York.
“We are comfortable with stocks climbing higher than pulling higher. So we think the slow gradual increase is bullish, ”said Shah. While valuations are slightly rich, “when you have a bull market, people will pay more for quality names.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told Congress that the US economy is in good shape, even as he cites the potential threat of the coronavirus in China and concerns about the long-term health of the economy. .
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 0.48 points, or -0%, to 29,276.34. The S&P 500 .SPX gained 5.66 points, or 0.17%, to 3,357.75, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 10.55 points, or 0.11%, to 9,638.94.
The pan-European STOXX 600 closed up 0.90% and emerging market stocks rose 1.11%. The benchmark CSI300 .CSI300 in Shanghai gained 0.9%.
German stocks rallied after Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) jumped 3.8% after a US judge approved T-Mobile’s decision (TMUS.O) takeover of wireless operator Sprint Corp (S.N) as part of a merger initially valued at $ 26 billion. The German telecommunications giant owns 63% of T-Mobile, whose shares increased by 10.8%. Sprint gained 74%.
Concerns about the economic impact of the coronavirus have recently added security to the dollar, while economic data has confirmed that the US economic outlook is stronger than that of the eurozone.
The dollar also gained as investors turned to operations, where they borrow in low-yielding currencies like the euro and the Swiss franc and invest in dollars or other high-yielding currencies.
The dollar index .DXY fell 0.08%, the euro EUR = up 0.08% to $ 1.0918. The Japanese yen remained stable against the greenback at 109.79 for the dollar.
A Department of Labor report said job openings in the United States fell for a second consecutive month in December to their lowest level in two years, while hirings had increased slightly, suggesting that a recent faster employment growth is unlikely to continue.
Oil prices edged up from 13-month lows. Investors, however, remain cautious about the continued decline in Chinese demand if the coronavirus spreads more than expected and if the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies fail to agree on support measures.
Crude oil Brco LCOc1 was 74 cents at $ 54.01 a barrel, while US crude West Texas Intermediate CLc1 rose 37 cents to $ 49.94 a barrel.
The US gold futures contract GCcv1 fell 0.6% to $ 1,570.10 an ounce.
(Chart: link to Asian stock markets: here)
(Graphic: link to Asia-Pacific assessments: here)
(Chart: FX world rate in 2020 link: here)
Reporting by Herbert Lash; Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London; edited by Lisa Shumaker, Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman
