General manager Robert Schneider puts up social distancing guidelines at the register at Sam Ash Music Store in Lyndhurst, Ohio, Monday, May 11, 2020. Ohio's retail stores can re-open Tuesday following the states guidelines for social distancing. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
Stock moved lower in morning trading on Wall Street Friday following another batch of data showing how the business shutdowns aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic are ravaging the economy.
The government reported that U.S. retail sales sank a record 16% in April, the second steep decline in a row as store closures kept shoppers away. The Federal Reserve also reported that industrial production plunged a record 11.2% last month. Overseas, Germany’s economy shrank in the first quarter, meaning that Europe’s largest economy is in a recession.
The selling, which briefly eased in the first hour of trading and then accelerated, erased some of the market’s gains from a day earlier. The S&P 500 was down 0.7% after briefly turning flat. It's on track for its third weekly loss in the past four weeks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 149 points, or 0.7%, to 23,474. The Nasdaq composite, which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, slid 0.70%. Small-company stocks were doing better than the rest of the market. The Russell 2000 index rose 0.4%.
Bonds yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, a benchmark for interest rates on many consumer loans, rose to 0.63% from 0.61% late Thursday.
Technology stocks bore the brunt of the selling, with chipmakers among the biggest losers after the U.S. government moved to impose new restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei. The Commerce Department said Friday the restrictions, which impede Huawei's ability to use U.S. technology and software to design and manufacture its semiconductors abroad, aim to cut off the company's undermining of existing U.S. sanctions.
The U.S. government blacklisted the Chinese tech company a year ago, deeming it a national security risk. But there have been numerous loopholes that U.S. officials say the new restriction is meant to address. The news weighed on shares in several chipmakers. Lam Research and Qualcomm were down more than 6% in morning trading.
Energy stocks led the gainers as crude oil prices climbed. Benchmark U.S. crude picked up $1.26, or 4.6%, to $28.83 a barrel. Brent, the international standard, was up 38 cents to $31.51 a barrel.
Fears of a crushing recession due to the coronavirus sent the S&P 500 into a skid of more than 30% from its high in February. Hopes for a relatively quick rebound and unprecedented moves by the Federal Reserve and Congress to stem the economic pain fueled a historic rebound for stocks in April, with the S&P 500 recouping nearly all of its losses.
So far this month, however, stocks have been headed mostly lower. Investors are balancing cautious optimism of a recovery as economies around the world slowly ease the restrictions on people and businesses against worries that the moves could lead to another surge in coronavirus infections and more economic uncertainty.
Meanwhile, investors are beginning to fret about another possible flare-up in tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Major stock indexes in Asia ended mixed. Markets in Europe were also mixed following a report showing that Germany, the continent's largest economy, fell into recession in the first quarter with a 2.2% quarter-on-quarter decline. That pullback echoed economic declines in France and Italy.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
