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Huge rallies on Wall Street, major indices gain more than 9%
Mar 14, 2020NEW YORK, New York – U.S. stocks made a dramatic recovery after see-sawing throughout much of Friday. Late in the day President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over Covid-19, and pledged another $50 billion to fight the virus which has killed 46 Americans, and over 5,000 people worldwide.
Mr Trump said he was also calling on the private sector, including companies like Google and Walmart to help speed up the production of testing kits.
“The initial take, he started talking about $50 billion, the market asked ‘where is that going?'” Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois told Reuters Thomson Friday.
“But as he’s been bringing these various leaders to the front and they have been talking about what they are doing, that is really what the market is responding to.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1,985 points, or 9.36%, to 23,185.62 Friday.
The Standard and Poor’s 500 added 230.38 points, or 9.29%, to 2,711.02.
The Nasdaq Composite climbed 673.07 points, or 9.35%, to 7,874.88.
The U.S. dollar too broke new ground, sending major currencies sharply lower. The British pound tumbled to 1.2277, the euro fell to 1.1101. The Japanese yen sank to 107.95.
The Australian dollar dived to 0.6224. The New Zealand dollar was sharply lower at 0.6068.
The Swiss franc edged higher to 0.9516, as did the Canadian dollar to 1.3804.
On overseas markets, the FTSE 100 rallied by 3.40%. The Paris-based CAC 40 gained 1.83% while the German Dax added 0.77%.
On Asian markets, the key Japanese index, the Nikkei 225, was down 1,128.58 points or 6.08% at 17,431.05.
The Australian All Ordinaries closed 4.09% or 219.80 points higher at 5,590.70.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong sank 1,400 points, but recovered almost 1,000 of them late in the day, only to drift lower again, before whipsawing again to close down just 276.16 points or 1.14% at 24,032.91.
The Shanghai Composite in China traded consistently through the day, finishing down 36.06 points or 1.23% at 2,887.43.
