By Alex Eule
| Thursday, May 28
Back to the Future. As
investors continued to look at 2021 and a post-coronavirus world, they
likely didn't expect to be brought back to 2019's issues. But that's what
happened this afternoon, when the White House said it would be making new
comments tomorrow about China. While wrapping up an Oval Office press
briefing about hurricane season, President Donald
Trump said, "Tomorrow we’re going to be
having a press conference on China. We’ll be making decisions, and
we’ll be discussing them tomorrow."
With that,
stocks erased their gains for the day. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average closed down 148 points, or 0.6%. Tomorrow's
press conference will come as U.S.-China tensions ramp up
again around Covid-19, technology, and the status of Hong Kong. Those
issues suggest any announcement won't be a Kumbaya moment, and
investors are worried that the fragile U.S.-China trade deal could be
fraying.
The Dow was up
211 points around 2 p.m. today, with investors finding some optimism inside
the latest report on jobless claims. While another 2.1 million Americans filed for unemployment, the number of new
claims has now decreased for eight consecutive weeks. That might not offer
much solace to the 40 million Americans who have already filed claims
since the pandemic began, but it came as good news to investors.
The number of
continuing claims also fell to 21.1 million -- lower than economists had
expected -- from 24.9 million last week. Barron's Lisa
Beilfuss has more on the jobless numbers here.
As May nears a close, the S&P
500 is up
4% on the month, and it's currently up 17% over the last two months. If
that gain holds, it would be the index's best two-month stretch since April
2009.
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