The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits surged to a record 3.28 million last week as businesses shuttered and laid-off workers as part of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Stocks were lower around the world before the claims data yesterday but US stocks opened higher with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 500 points at the opening as investors digested the data on jobless claims that underscores the virus's toll on the economy.
Hang Seng Index Futures, meanwhile, rose 280 points last night after the Hang Seng Index fell 174.85 points to 23,352.
Initial jobless claims in the week ended March 21 were up from 282,000 in the prior week and more than quadruple the previous record high of 695,000 in 1982, according to Labor Department figures released last night. The figures date back to 1967 and economists' projections for the figure had ranged as high as 4.4 million.
The United States "may well be in recession" but progress in containing the pandemic will dictate when the economy can fully reopen, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said yesterday.
"We are not experts in pandemic... We would tend to listen to the experts. Dr. Fauci said something like the virus is going to set the timetable, and that sounds right to me," Powell said, in reference to Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who is on the White House's coronavirus task force.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's exports unexpectedly rose 4.3 percent in February from year-ago levels to HK$238.6 billion, better than the -20 percent median forecast among economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Imports dropped 0.1 percent to HK$277.1 billion, extending declines for a 15th straight month. The trade deficit widened to HK$38.6 billion.
For the first two months this year, exports fell 12 percent in value, the worst for a combined two-month period since 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Meanwhile, imports decreased by 9.3 percent. A visible trade deficit of HK$69.1 billion was recorded.
Elsewhere, Singapore's economy contracted the most in a decade in the first quarter. Gross domestic product fell an annualized 10.6 percent in the first quarter from the previous three months, with the government now expecting a sharp full-year contraction in the economy of 1-4 percent.
US stocks rose after the data was released.
AFP
