Dow futures fall around 300 points as Wall Street grapples with rising Covid cases, earnings

U.S. stock futures fell early Wednesday morning following a mixed session in which traders weighed a recent uptick in coronavirus infections.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures traded around 290 points lower, paring earlier losses. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq-100 futures also traded in negative territory.

The Dow fell more than 200 points during regular trading and the S&P 500 slipped 0.3%. The Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, advanced 0.6%. Tuesday’s divergent market action came as names that would benefit from people staying at home — such as Amazon and Zoom Video — rose broadly while stocks dependent on the economy reopening declined.

Daily U.S. coronavirus cases have risen by a record average of 69,967 over the past week, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed. Meanwhile, coronavirus-related hospitalizations are up 5% or more in 36 states, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.

This uptick has led some countries to reinstate certain lockdown measures. In the U.S., the state of Illinois has ordered Chicago to shut down indoor dining.

“Uncertainty about COVID-19-related mobility restrictions and US politics mean we should expect volatility to remain elevated for the balance of the year,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer for global wealth management at UBS, in a note. “However, we continue to see upside over the medium term.”

“With ten vaccine candidates in late-stage trials globally, our central scenario is that restrictions can start to be lifted by 2Q21, helping corporate earnings recover to pre-pandemic highs by around the end of 2021,” he said.

Wall Street also pored through the latest batch of corporate earnings for the previous quarter, including those of tech giant Microsoft.

Microsoft reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the previous quarter as sales from its cloud business grew sharply. However, the stock dipped 0.3% in after-hours trading.

“Redmond is continuing to see strength in the field as more enterprises move to the cloud,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note. “This is a stark contrast to the earnings debacle we saw from mature software stalwart SAP earlier this week which highlights the clear winners and losers in this cloud shift with MSFT leading the way.”

First Solar also posted quarterly numbers that beat analyst expectations, sending its shares up about 10% after the bell. Boeing, General Electric, UPS and Fiat Chrysler are among the companies set to report Wednesday before the bell.

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