Wall Street came roaring back Tuesday with all major indices rising on a potential deal between Senate Democrats and Republicans to approve a new stimulus package and suggestions from President Donald Trump that the economy would reopen sooner rather than later.
In a Monday evening press conference from the White House, Trump hinted that emergency orders established to address the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. could be lifted more quickly than most experts recommend.
“It’s going to be soon,” Trump said. “It’s not going to be three or four months.”
Experts say that lifting the mitigation policies that the U.S. has only just enacted would be a death sentence for thousands of Americans.
“You can’t call off the best weapon we have, which is social isolation, even out of economic desperation, unless you’re willing to be responsible for a mountain of deaths,” Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at NYU Langone Medical Center, told The New York Times. “Thirty days makes more sense than 15 days. Can’t we try to put people’s lives first for at least a month?”
As Trump adjusted expectations for how long the lockdown would last, Senate Republicans and Democrats were inching closer to a new stimulus package that would inject some $2 trillion into the economy.
Taken together, investors responded by pouring money into the markets, sending the Dow up nearly 6%, while the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 both went up over 5% in early morning trading.
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One hour into the open here’s the tale of the tape:
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 6.46% or 1,201.54, to 19,793
- The S&P 500 Index was up 5.77%, or 129.10, to 2,366.50
- The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 5.38%, or 368.91, to 7,229.58
Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet all posted gains in the morning, as did Tesla, which jumped more than 16% in early morning trading.
