Let’s see.
The Senate went home for the weekend without passing an extension to the $600 a week in enhanced unemployment benefits–so that program will pay out its last checks tomorrow.
China retaliated for U.S. action to close China’s Houston consulate on accusations of espionage by ordering the closing of the U.S consulate in Chengdu.
The coronavirus surge in the United States showed no signs of abating and more states issued orders restricting business openings.
Economists studying indicators such as credit card spending and restaurant orders reported that they see signs that the economic recovery has at least stalled or, even worse, is in danger of turning into a double-dip recession.
Despite all that at the close today the Standard & Poor’s 500 was down only 0.62% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by only 0.68%. The NASDAQ Composite lost a somewhat larger 0.94%. The Russell 2000 small cap index dropped 1.52%. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) slid 0.09%.
The leaders in this stage of the rally hung tough even against analyst criticism of valuation on Tesla (TSLA) and Apple (AAPL). Those two stock were down 6.35% and 0.25%, respectively.
Amazon, to my thinking the key to the market at the moment, was up 0.75%.
What I’ve been calling “re-opening dependent stocks” were down pretty much cross the board with Six Flags(SIX) falling 3.13% and American Airlines (AAL) 3.23%. Shake Shack was lower by 1.59% and MGM Resorts International was down 0.63%.
The damage didn’t extend to the financial sector–the second largest market sector by valuation behind technology. The Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF) was off just 0.24%
