- Title: Wall St closes sharply lower as Trump tests positive for coronavirus
- Date: 2nd October 2020
- Summary: CANADIAN, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 2, 2020) (REUTERS VIA SKYPE) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PRESIDENT OF ABRAHAM TRADING COMPANY, SALEM ABRAHAM, SAYING: "We had the jobs number come out, which was a little less than what people had hoped for. But certainly the big news is the president and first lady testing positive for COVID. And then the unknown now is how sick might rea
- Embargoed: 16th October 2020 21:08
- Keywords: COVID-19 Melania Trump President Donald Trump coronavirus diagnosis
- Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, AND CANADIAN, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
- City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, AND CANADIAN, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Economic Events,Equities Markets,United States
- Reuters ID: LVA002CYFS213
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: U.S. stocks closed lower on Friday (Oct. 2) as news that U.S. President Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19 put investors in a risk-off mood and added to mounting uncertainties surrounding the looming election.
Tech shares weighed heaviest on the indexes, but the blue-chip Dow's losses were mitigated by gains in economically sensitive cyclical stocks.
Trump tweeted late Thursday that he had contracted the coronavirus and would be placed under quarantine, compounding the unknowns for an already volatile market.
But stocks pared losses after the White House provided assurances that Trump, while experiencing mild symptoms, is not incapacitated.
Equities also got a brief boost after U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement that an agreement to provide another $25 billion in government assistance to the airline industry was "imminent."
House Democrats passed a $2.2 trillion fiscal aid package on Thursday, but the bill is unlikely to be approved in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Partisan wrangling over the size and details of a new round of stimulus have stalled, over two months after emergency unemployment benefits expired for millions of Americans.
Data released on Friday showed the recovery of the labor market could be losing steam. The U.S. economy added 661,000 jobs in September, fewer than expected and the slowest increase since the recovery began in May.
Payrolls remain a long way from regaining the 22 million jobs lost since the initial shutdown, and the ranks of the permanently unemployed are swelling.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 134.09 points, or 0.48%, to 27,682.81, the S&P 500 lost 32.36 points, or 0.96%, to 3,348.44 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 251.49 points, or 2.22%, to 11,075.02.
(Production: Conway Gittens, Hyeongmi Kim, Roselle Chen) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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