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Global stocks stabilize after Wall Street’s wild ride.
Global markets stabilized on Wednesday, and futures pointed to a positive open on Wall Street, after U.S. stocks ended Tuesday’s trading sharply lower.
European markets were higher after a mixed day in Asia, signaling a wait-and-see attitude on how global leaders would react to the worldwide coronavirus outbreak.
In the United States, a rosier outlook might also reflect Wall Street’s appraisal of the Super Tuesday primary election results, which revived Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign against Senator Bernie Sanders, whose plans to take on banks and tax stock and bond trades have worried many in the financial community.
Oil prices rose slightly, a sign that investors who panicked on Tuesday were starting to see confidence return.
From Tokyo to New York, investors are grappling with the potential damage the coronavirus could inflict on the global economy as fractured supply chains, travel bans imposed by companies and governments, and the disruption of daily life in general, take their toll.
As the virus has spread around the world, investors have become intensely focused on its impact. But there is little clarity about how long it will take governments and health officials to contain the virus, leading to a gloomy prognosis for global economic growth.
On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve validated these concerns by announcing an emergency cut in interest rates, only a few hours after leaders of the world’s largest economy said they would refrain from concrete action.
And Wall Street’s reaction to the Fed’s move — stocks and bond yields both fell sharply — showed that investors had settled on the conclusion that the cut would not address the biggest economic challenges posed by the virus.
While they can bolster confidence and help to keep borrowing cheap, central banks cannot prevent disease from spreading or mend broken supply chains amid factory delays.
In global financial markets on Wednesday, there were few signs of Wall Street’s jitters a day earlier.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index in Britain was 1.4 percent higher. The DAX in Germany gained 1.1 percent, while the CAC 40 index in France was up 1.2 percent.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index ended 0.1 percent higher, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index finished 0.2 percent lower.
In China, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.6 percent.
The biggest loser in the Asia-Pacific region on Wednesday was the Australian stock market, where the S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.7 percent. The biggest gainer among major indexes was the Kospi in South Korea, which rose 2.2 percent.
Ford is halting domestic travel as well as international.
As the coronavirus outbreak has spread to Europe and the United States, companies that rely on world travelers are struggling to predict exactly how they will ultimately be affected as corporations impose restrictions on nonessential business travel and the public stays put.
Most restrictions by American companies are on cross-border travel, but Ford Motor Company told its employees on Tuesday to stop all domestic air travel in the United States, and to use videoconferences as much as possible for critical meetings.
Rare exceptions will be made for travel that is critical to Ford operations, requires employees to be on site and does not put anyone at risk, the company said.
The company had previously restricted travel to and from China, where it has two joint ventures.
General Motors has stopped all employee travel to China, Japan, South Korea and Italy, and restricted international travel to other locations only for essential matters. Exceptions for international travel require approval of a senior executive, a spokesman said.
Analysts say most companies in the lodging, gambling or leisure industries — including cruise ship lines and amusement parks — know they will take hit in the short term, but have little idea of what will happen in the summer or beyond.
Nervous investors are bracing for the worst. The stocks of hotel chains like Hyatt, Marriott and InterContinental Hotels have tumbled more than 16 percent this year, compared with declines of 5 percent in the broader market.
Small businesses are already feeling the effects.
Larry Birnbaum, who owns The Lightbulb Store in Hackensack, N.J., which manufactures and distributes LED products, said 95 percent of his stock comes from China, and nothing has come through in the last month.
On average, Mr. Birnbaum said, he orders $100,000 in LED light bulbs from China every month, the equivalent of roughly 1,000 bulbs. When he paid the balance on his last order about a month ago, the factory called him and told him the Chinese government said that it wasn’t able to ship the bulbs and that the soonest it could was maybe the end of April or beginning of May.
“Maybe is a scary word,” Mr. Birnbaum said. “I’ve been in the lighting business for 47 years. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The Lightbulb Store is both a wholesale business that sells to electronic wholesalers and a retail business for walk-in customers. Retail customers have yet to be affected, but Mr. Birnbaum said he doesn’t know how he’ll replenish his stock once what’s on the shelves is gone.
Mr. Birnbaum said he relies on Chinese manufacturers for LED bulbs because he can get them for less there. He has found a few U.S. companies to buy bulbs from in the meantime, but has had to pay 20 to 30 percent above the typical price that suppliers in the United States were charging — which was already more than 10 percent higher than ordering from China. As a result, Mr. Birnbaum said, he is raising his prices for wholesale customers by 10 to 15 percent.
“I have had to put my hand in my pocket. If this goes on much longer, I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I’m sure I’m not the only one in this boat,” he said. “As it gets leaner and leaner, it’s scary.”
Here’s what else is happening.
Google said on Tuesday that it was canceling its annual developers conference because of concerns related to coronavirus. The Google I/O event was scheduled to take place May 12-14 in Mountain View, Calif.
Amazon learned that an employee in one of its office buildings in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle had tested positive for the virus, the company said in an email to its staff late Tuesday. “We are supporting the affected employee, who remains in quarantine,” said Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman.
Reporting was contributed by Neal E. Boudette, Julie Creswell, Sophia June, Karen Weise and Daisuke Wakabayashi.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/business/stock-markets-today.html
2020-03-04 12:22:30Z
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