Stocks set to open lower
Wall Street futures are signaling a lower open Thursday, as drastic action from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB) to prop up the global economy unnerved traders.
As of 5:30 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue-chip Dow were down 238 points, or 1.2% to 19,615. The S&P 500 futures dropped 26.75 points, or 1.11% to 2,374.75 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures traded 21.12 points, or 0.29% lower to 7,184.38.
Overnight, the ECB unveiled plans to buy up to €750 billion ($822.5 billion) in corporate and government bonds and other assets to counter economic blow from the coronavirus pandemic.
Fed officials, meanwhile, said that they would launch a program to support money market mutual funds amid the pandemic. The U.S. Department of Treasury will provide $10 billion of credit protection to the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility.
Crude oil futures rebound
In commodities, crude oil futures attempted to rebound from the previous session’s losses on Thursday, with U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rising $2.50, or around 12%, at $23.33 per barrel. International Brent crude oil futures were at $26.33 a barrel, up $1.45, or about 5.83%.
Data released by the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed U.S. crude inventories rose while distillate and gasoline stockpile dropped in the week ended March 13.
Crude inventories increased by 2 million barrels to 453.7 million barrels, versus Reuters expectations of a 3.3 million barrel-rise.
NYSE to temporarily close equity and options trading floors due to coronavirus
The New York Stock Exchange will temporarily shut its trading floors and move fully to electronic trading from Monday, after two people were confirmed to have covid-19 at screenings earlier this week.
According to a statement issued released by the exchange’s parent Intercontinental Exchange late Wednesday, the facilities that will close are the NYSE equities trading floor and NYSE American Options trading floor in New York, as well as the NYSE Arca Options trading floor in San Francisco.
“NYSE’s trading floors provide unique value to issuers and investors, but our markets are fully capable of operating in an all-electronic fashion to serve all participants, and we will proceed in that manner until we can re-open our trading floors to our members,” New York Stock Exchange president Stacey Cunningham said.
In October 2012, the U.S. stock market closed two days after Hurricane Sandy and for four trading days in the wake of 9/11 terrorist attacks.
