05 October 2020
Stocks rallied overnight in Asia and U.S. stock futures are poised to open higher as markets have shown little impact from news that President Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Friday.
The state of play: Even in the immediate aftermath of Trump sharing the news on Twitter, currency and Treasury markets, which historically have been more attuned to economic and geopolitical upheaval than stocks, had little reaction.
By the numbers: Friday's 1% fall for the S&P 500 was only the seventh biggest decline for the index out of 11 negative sessions in the last month of trading.
- In fact, two S&P 500 sectors — industrials and financials, which are said to be more sensitive to the overall health of the economy — rallied 1.1% and 0.7%, respectively, on Friday.
- The 2.2% drop on the Nasdaq was the fourth biggest decline during that period, and was about half the size of two much larger falls on Sept. 3 and Sept. 8 that many market participants chalked up to profit-taking or the unwinding of positions.
- The Dow had its eighth worst day of the last 30 sessions, declining by less than half a percent.
The intrigue: The CBOE's volatility index, the VIX, rose 4.5% Friday but that increase was less than a third of two other jumps in mid-September.
- Despite Trump’s diagnosis, futures on the VIX still show traders are far more worried about the time period after the Nov. 3 election.
- The 2020 election is the most expensive event risk on record, per Bloomberg — with insurance bets on implied volatility six times their normal level, according to JPMorgan analysts.
The big picture: With the Fed expected to keep U.S. interest rates at zero until at least the end of 2023 and to provide additional liquidity to the market should stock prices fall significantly, stock traders seem unfazed by Trump's uncertain health status or the declining likelihood of fiscal stimulus this year.
- The Fed and other central banks also appear to be in the driver's seat on the movement of government bonds and FX as quantitative easing programs have held yields in a tight range since March.
- Despite the decline in stock prices on Friday, Treasury yields rose and the dollar weakened, bucking traditional risk aversion patterns.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.