Friday, April 24, 2020

4:25 pm ET: Wall Street Ends Bumpy Week With Gain Led by Technology

Stocks are closing out a tumultuous week with broad gains, led by familiar names in technology including Apple. The S&P 500 rose 1.4% Friday but still ended the week lower, breaking a two-week winning streak. Stocks meandered between gains and losses for much of the morning then rose steadily in the afternoon. The calm trading offered a soothing coda to what’s been a wild week. From Monday’s astonishing plummet for oil to Thursday’s sudden disappearance of a morning stock rally, markets pinballed as the mood swung from fear to hope and back again amid the coronavirus pandemic. Read more...

— The Associated Press

3:33 pm ET: Around the World in 90 Seconds: Ramadan Begins, Theater Makes Masks

Muslims around the world mark a Ramadan like no other and an Argentinian theater has hung up its costumes to focus on making masks to stop the spread of COVID-19. Here are your coronavirus headlines from around the world.

2:45 pm ET: Millennial Investing Ticks Up Despite Coronavirus Hit to Markets

The last economic crisis struck as many millennials were graduating from college. This time, it came as many were starting retirement funds and stock portfolios. But now the cohort is older and wiser, and some are doubling down on investing even amid the coronavirus outbreak.

"Millennials are engaged, signing on, and trading," said Frank Lietke, senior director of Ally Invest, a digital trading platform that caters to millennials.

The segment's trading activity on the platform increased 12 percent since last year, and they're also buying over selling more than other demographics. Millennials made up 70 percent of equity trades that were buys as opposed to sells over the past 30 days. That's compared to 65 percent before the volatility set in, according to Ally Invest. Read more...

— Alex Vuocolo

1:40 pm ET: New York's Virus Death Toll Falls to Lowest Level in Weeks

The state reported 422 deaths as of Thursday. That's the fewest since March 31, when it recorded 391 deaths. More than 16,000 people have died in the state from the outbreak. Read more...

— The Associated Press

Customers wear personal protective equipment as they board an MTA bus as it operates without fees, Friday, April 24, 2020, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

1:29 pm ET: DraftKings Goes Public With Sports World at a Standstill

Shares of DraftKings soared as the sports-betting company became a publicly-traded stock Friday.

Its debut, under the ticker $DKNG on the Nasdaq, comes at an odd time for the company. With sports events all on hold, the platform's users are being encouraged to bet on other odds, like episodes of Survivor.

"It's definitely not what we expected in the backdrop of us going public," DraftKings co-founder and CEO Jason Robins told Cheddar ahead of the opening bell Friday. Read more...

— Taylor Craig

1:08 pm ET: Asian Americans Seek to Deter Attacks

The coronavirus first seen in China is now ravaging the U.S., and Asian Americans are continuing to wrestle with a second epidemic: hate. Hundreds of attacks on Asian people have been reported, with few signs of decline. Rather than feel helpless, many are turning to a range of tactics, from guns to GoPros. Others are training in deflection instead. Many Asian Americans say they want to safely confront racist bullying and harassment. Grassroots groups are holding videoconferencing calls to share ways to defuse abuse. The onslaught of anti-Asian attacks has evoked parallels to how Muslim Americans were treated after 9/11. Read more...

— The Associated Press

Eddie Song a Korean American entrepreneur, arrives at his motorcycle storage garage wearing a video camera clipped to his cap and a face mask due to COVID-19, Sunday April 19, 2020, in East Village neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

11:50 am ET: Some Georgia Businesses Reopen as Gov. Kemp Eases Shutdown

Some businesses reopened cautiously in Georgia on Friday as the Republican governor eased a month-long shutdown amid experts’ warnings of a potential new surge in coronavirus infections and a potent objection from President Donald Trump.

Georgia has ranked in the bottom for testing per capita despite a bump in screenings this week, and critics say Gov. Brian Kemp's order was premature.

But in Atlanta, a WSB-TV reporter tweeted a photo of a man getting a haircut - he was among the first customers at a barbershop that was reopening. A bowling alley in Rome posted on Facebook that it was getting back in business with social distancing rules, including a limit of six people to a lane and plenty of hand sanitizer. Read more...

— The Associated Press

10:54 am ET: Asia Today: Muslims Change Traditions in Virus-Hit Ramadan

Millions of Muslims in Asia began Ramadan, Islam's holiest month, on Friday under the gloom of life with the coronavirus, which has forced extensive changes to traditions.

Ramadan is a time for Muslims to get closer to God, family, and society, but under the pandemic many have lost jobs, canceled plans to visit relatives, and can't break their daily fast with others. Muslims usually fast during the day and then congregate for night prayers and share communal meals.

In many places, mosques have been locked to deter the spread of the virus. Read more...

— The Associated Press

Muslim men wearing face masks as a precaution against coronavirus during the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan in the province of Aceh, Indonesia, Friday, April 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Heri Juanda)

9:50 am ET: Markets Steady as Oil Hits $17 per Barrel 

Markets opened higher Friday as oil prices continued to recover. West Texas Intermediate crude, the benchmark for U.S. oil prices, hit $17 per barrel, a 40 percent increase in the last three days. Now investors are anticipating a U.S. production cut to align with plummeting demand. 

Stocks saw a bump despite the news out of the U.S. Department of Labor that 26 million people have filed jobless claims since the onset of coronavirus. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 180 points after the bell. The S&P 500 increased 0.6 percent,  while the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.4 percent. Read more...

— Alex Vuocolo

8:10 am ET: Antibody Results, More Help Coming & Was C.E.S. Ground Zero?

Get your news over easy every morning by listening to the Need 2 Know podcast (Stitcher, iTunes) and signing up for our morning newsletter.

COVID-19: LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: One in five New York City residents tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, according to preliminary data from the state’s first randomized antibody test. That means as many as 2.7 million New Yorkers may be walking around with some immunity, having already been infected without knowing it. The results raise the prospect that, at least in some high-density areas, the virus may be much more widespread than previously known — which would also mean the mortality rate is much lower. Experts warn these tests could be giving off significant false positives, and more work needs to be done, but the early results could be key in determining when and how to restart the country’s largest economic engine. NY TIMES

MORE HELP ON THE WAY: The House easily passed another $484 billion stimulus package that will replenish the small-business loan program that ran out of money, as well as set aside money for hospitals and testing. President Trump will sign it into law as soon as today. This could be the last federal aid for a while. Lawmakers are at odds over how much more to do, even as some economists say this new package is too small. It also doesn’t provide any money for state governments, many of which have been pleading for federal assistance to keep workers on the payrolls. POLITICO

REOPENING DAY: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says he will move ahead with opening parts of the state today, despite President Trump’s public opposition. Kemp is under growing pressure to delay the reopening of nonessential businesses for “limited operations.” Infectious disease experts in the state believe it hasn’t met the criteria for lifting lockdowns as laid out by the White House. Meanwhile, many Las Vegas residents and employees are pushing back after the mayor called for the reopening of hotels and casinos. NPR

REMDESIVIR UPDATE: The malaria drug remdesivir, which has been showing positive signs in some trials, did not help improvement in any patients in a clinical trial taking place in China, according to leaked results. Gilead, the maker of remdesivir, says the study should be taken with a grain of salt because the Chinese researchers had to stop it early due to a lack of patients. STAT

JOBLESS CLAIMS: The report on weekly unemployment claims, which has become one of the grimmer rituals of the spring, showed another 4.4 million people filed for jobless benefits last week, slightly more than expected but a decline from the week prior. More than 26.4 million people have lost their jobs in the past five weeks. CNBC

GROUND ZERO: CES?: Could the Consumer Electronics Show -- the massive annual trade show that happened in Vegas in early January -- have been ground zero for the U.S. coronavirus epidemic? A conference attendee says he has tested positive for antibodies and believes he was infected around that time. There is no proof that the virus was circulating in the country that early, but there is mounting speculation that CES may have been one of —-- if not the — first incubating event for the virus in America. Thousands of people crammed into the convention hall, including many who then flew home to big cities now seeing major outbreaks. Nearly a quarter of exhibitors were from China, including 100 people from Wuhan. AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA

NFL DRAFT: The first round of the weirdest NFL Draft ever is in the books and it was actually...kind of special? Players, coaches and owners seemed to take the virtual aspects in stride, and viewers got peeks into the homes (and at least one yacht) of some of the biggest names in the league. The glitches were few and far between, and even Roger Goodell came off looking pretty good. As expected, the Bengals took Joe Burrow first overall. Chase Young and Jeff Okudah, both of Ohio State, went to the Redskins and Lions, respectively. Round Two is tonight. SEE THE PICKS

LOCKDOWN ANTHEM: We may have ourselves an anthem for the lockdown era. The Rolling Stones just released a new song, appropriately titled: Living in a Ghost Town. The band says they were working on it before the pandemic, but decided to revisit and release it, believing it would resonate right now: WATCH THE VIDEO

SPOTTED...

...Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, spending his birthday driving around his hometown of Oakland on a scooter, passing out masks: WATCH

… Alex Trebek, in full DGAF mode, with a savage response to a Jeopardy! contestant’s ‘fun fact’: WATCH

LEFTOVERS: RIDE OR DIE: Officials in the southern California city of San Clemente thought they came up with a great idea to keep the local skateboarders from congregating during the lockdown: fill the popular skate park with tons of sand. It worked, kind of. While the skaters were deterred, groups of dirt-bike riders have been showing up to hit the sand-filled half pipes and pop off wheelies. OC REGISTER

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