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U.S. President Trump waves from the back of a car in a motorcade outside of Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland on October 4, 2020.
alex edelman/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
European stocks rose on Monday on hopes for one last economic stimulus boost to the economy before the U.S. election, as well as a clear result on Election Day.
The Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP, +0.79% gained 0.8%, with similarly sized gains for the German DAX DAX, +0.84%, the French CAC 40 PX1, +0.97% and the U.K. FTSE 100 UKX, +0.91%. Gainers included steelmakers ThyseenKrupp TKA, +9.12% and ArcelorMittal MT, +1.90%.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00, +0.77% rose 215 points.
Politico reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin consulted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell about their stimulus plan talks. It’s unclear what, if any, role the Fed will play. The central bank did have a role in the first stimulus plan. Pelosi separately said in an interview with CBS that airlines should not fire workers, and that aid will be retroactive.
Apart from a brief car ride, President Donald Trump spent the weekend at Walter Reed Medical Center, recovering from COVID-19. In or out of the hospital, recent public opinion polls have swung decidedly to his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.
“Financial markets have lowered their expectations of prolonged uncertainty post-Election Day slightly and now seem a little less worried about a close and contested election,” said strategists at Barclays in a note to clients. The strategists said Trump’s hospitalization may prove to be the “political trigger” that brings a stimulus deal to the finish line.
Also on the politics front, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement urging their negotiators to “work intensively” to forge a trade deal, as Johnson also declared in an interview that he was willing to leave the trading bloc without one.
The news on the coronavirus front continued to be worrying, with Paris on the verge of shutting bars, though its restaurants will remain open, and Marseille is reopening restaurants.
Cineworld CINE, -40.46% shares fell 38%, as it said it will be suspending operations at all of its 536 Regal theaters in the U.S. and its 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse theaters in the U.K. from Thursday. Cineworld said it is “assessing several sources of additional liquidity.”
Weir Group’s WEIR, +18.71% shares rose 18% after agreeing to sell its Fort Worth, Texas-based oil and gas products business to Caterpillar CAT, +2.20% for $405 million in cash. Weir also said the deal will help it realize a $70 million tax benefit and turn it into a “premium mining technology pure play.”
