US: Market jumps over 3%

The US equity market finished session higher on Monday, 30 March 2020, as investors saw glimmers of optimism in efforts to deliver rapid testing for the new coronavirus and government officials signaled that measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic are likely to remain in place for an extended time. At closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 690.7 points, or 3.2%, to 22,327.48. The S&P 500 climbed 85.18 points, or 3.4%, to 2,626.65. The Nasdaq Composite rose 271.77 points, or 3.6%, to 7,774.15.

Risk appetite buying underpinned on the back of government's efforts to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and cushion the economy against the impact of a near lockdown of activity across much of the U.S. All three major US indexes soared last week after legislators in Washington passed a $2.2 trillion virus rescue package to help individuals, industries and businesses great and small knocked sideways by coronavirus containment measures.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump ditched the idea of getting the economy back up and running in April and extended stay-at-home guidelines through the end of next month, after the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci, who has often contradicted Trump's coronavirus claims, said the pandemic could ultimately kill between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans if mitigation efforts do not succeed.

Adding to bullish sentiment, Italy saw the smallest increase in cases in two weeks, with the World Health Organization voiced hopes that they were seeing a stabilization of the coronavirus trajectory in Italy and Spain as a result of the European lockdowns.

However, market gains capped after news of the sharp increase in coronavirus cases in the United States and in other major economies. Investors are still struggling to gain clarity on the extent of the economic damage wrought by the pandemic. Entire sectors of the global economy have shut down with a swiftness and severity that has drawn comparisons with the opening days of the Great Depression that started in 1929.

Health-care shares were the biggest gainers, after Abbott Laboratories unveiling a five-minute Covid-19 test and Johnson & Johnson announced a vaccine candidate for the virus. Shares of Johnson & Johnson gained 7.9% after it said on Monday that plans to start human testing of its experimental coronavirus vaccine by September and make it ready for emergency use in early 2021. Shares of UnitedHealth Group Inc. also rose 3.6%.

ECONOMIC NEWS: US Pending Home Sales Surges 2.4% In February-- US pending home sales index surged up by 2.4% to 111.5 in February after spiking by 5.3% to an upwardly revised 108.9 in January, the National Association of Realtors reported on Monday. . A pending home sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed. Normally, it takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale.

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