US markets end higher on Monday

31 Mar 2020 Evaluate

The US markets ended higher with gains of over three percent on Monday, largely offsetting the pullback seen in last session, after President Donald Trump extended national social distancing guidelines until at least April 30. Trump had previously hoped to reopen the country by Easter Sunday, on April 12, but said he decided to extend the guidelines in an effort to keep the death toll from the coronavirus below 100,000. The announcement by Trump comes as data from Johns Hopkins University shows more than 153,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the US and more than 2,800 deaths. Trump said that he expects the US to be well on our way to recovery by June 1.

On the economic data front, pointing to a healthy housing market before the coronavirus-induced shutdown, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released a report showing an unexpected jump in pending home sales in the month of February. NAR said its pending home sales index surged up by 2.4 percent to 111.5 in February after spiking by 5.3 percent to an upwardly revised 108.9 in January. The continued increase surprised market participants, who had expected pending home sales to pull back by 1.0 percent. A pending home sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed. Normally, it takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale.

Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 690.7 points or 3.19 percent to 22,327.48, Nasdaq gained 271.77 points or 3.62 percent to 7,774.15 and S&P 500 was up by 85.18 points or 3.35 percent to 2,626.65.

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