Wall Street indexes saw their best monthly performance in over 30 years in April, despite the struggles caused by the coronavirus and the halting of businesses both in the U.S. and abroad. The S&P 500 ended the month up 12.7 percent, while the Nasdaq surged 15.5 percent for the month, tis biggest gain since June 2000. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted gains of 11.1 percent in April.
The gains were driven partially by solid earnings report by a handful of leading companies, and partially by optimism about a potential treatment for coronavirus. Also sending traders back to the stock markets were reports that the number of new diagnoses continues to decline worldwide and that many countries are advancing programs to reopen their economies.
Still, despite Thursday's gains, U.S. stock futures pointed to a lower open on Friday, with analysts expecting a drop of some 300 points on the open. The five-week tally of unemployment claims in the United States topped 30 million and consumer spending is markedly lower, indicating that the damage caused by the novel coronavirus is hardly near its end, even though the curve of new infections is flattening.
Though earnings season is barreling along and some solid reports have come from solid companies like Amazon and Apple, analysts are concern that positive data is masking problems beneath the surface. All three Wall Street benchmarks closed lower on Thursday despite posting impressive gains for the month.
Asian markets were mixed on Friday with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 3.13 percent and Australia's ASX 200 down 4.08 percent. Both of China's benchmarks, the Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Composite, were up over 1 percent as of 2:07 p.m. HK/SIN. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was up 0.28 percent.
On the currency markets, the U.S. dollar recovered some of Thursday's losses, with the dollar index edging up 0.04 percent to 99.05 .DXY. The dollar traded lower against the yen, down 0.14 percent to 107.02. The greenback surged 0.51 percent against the Canadian dollar to $1.401, and it also edged up against the British pound, to trade at $1.256.