(Reuters) – Weekend Street’s main index breathed a sigh of relief on Friday after a sharp gain this week as Democrat J. Biden came close to winning a nail-biting election, while a monthly job report highlighted the economic challenge facing the next U.S. president.
Biden led President Donald Trump in the war-torn states of Pennsylvania and Georgia, when Trump falsely claimed he was on the verge of a White House victory hours after the election was being stolen from him.
Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida, said: “Biden has been very comfortable with the idea (of winning the bidon), but it adds a bit of uncertainty if it is fought.”
“Even though these states are really close, we have to go back and recalculate, so we’re in for long-term uncertainty.”
Despite Friday’s losses, the benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq have been on track for their best week since April as the prospect of a policy gridlock in Washington and Washington has outpaced U.S. gains. Reduced concerns about stricter rules on companies.
Republicans could take control of the Uni. Senate in light of the outcome of four undisputed races, and they would likely block large parts of Biden’s legislative agenda, including expanding health care and fighting climate change.
Meanwhile, a closely watched report by the government showed that unemployment fell sharply last month compared to 7.7 per cent in September, but recovery in jobs slowed as financial support increased and daily coronavirus cases increased.
“Despite the short-term rally, we will eventually see some real challenges in payrolls and the economy,” said Phil Toives, chief executive officer and portfolio manager at Toys Corp. in New York.
“The most prominent indicator is the number of cases, hospital admissions and deaths in the country (COVID-19) and it is going in the completely wrong direction.” At 12:36 pm, the ET Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.31% to 28,299.98, the S&P 500 fell 0.16% to 3,504.79 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.21% to 11,866.16.
Technol.G mega-caps, including Apple Plus Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Micro .ft Corp. and Facebook Inc., fell after strong gains this week and are among the biggest pullbacks on the benchmark S&P 500.
Coty Inc. surged 15% as the cosmetics manufacturer beat analysts’ quarterly earnings estimates, while T-Mobile US Inc. rose 6.1% after adding more phone subscribers than expected in the third quarter.
Electronic Arts Inc. was down 7.8% from video game maker quarterly sales estimates.
Leading issues are declining by 1.42-to-1 on the NYSE and 1.59-to-1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index has 40 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq has 168 new highs and 22 new lows.
Report by Medha Singh and Susan Mathew in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Sagarika Jayasinghe in Bengaluru and Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Edited by Shriraj Kalluvila and Shunak Dasgupta
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