President Joe Biden speaks from the State Dining Room following the passage of the American Rescue Plan on March 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.
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Here’s what you need to know to navigate the markets today.
• Investors sent stock futures up Sunday night, ahead of the first trading day following the Senate’s passage of the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 225 points, or 0.87%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite futures both rose 0.6%. The coming week’s earnings reports include XPeng, Casey’s General Stores and Stitch Fix on Monday, followed by Dick’s Sporting Goods, H&R Block, and Thor Industries on Tuesday. AMC Entertainment, Campbell’s Soup and Oracle release earnings on Wednesday. DocuSign, JD.com, and Ulta Beauty announce results on Thursday, and Buckle and Northern Oil & Gas report on Friday. The National Federation of Independent Business releases its Small Business Optimism Index for February on Tuesday, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer-price index comes out Wednesday.
• Americans will start getting stimulus checks this month. “This plan will get checks out the door, starting this month, to the American people who so desperately need the help,” President Joe Biden said Saturday, adding, “over 85 percent of American households will get direct payments of $1,400 per person.” Single people with an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less, heads of households with an income of up to $112,500, and married couples filing jointly with an income of up to $150,000 will all receive the full amount per person so long as they have a Social Security number.
Before the payments go out, the House of Representatives needs to vote on the Senate version of the bill, which it plans to do on Tuesday. Then President Biden needs to sign the bill. It will likely take another two weeks for payments to start arriving in bank accounts, Garrett Watson, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation told CNBC, based on the timing of prior stimulus checks. People who have already provided their direct deposit information to the Internal Revenue Service will likely get payments first since the funds will be transferred electronically, while others will have to wait for paper checks or debit cards in the mail.
• President Biden signed an executive order expanding voting access Sunday. The order requires federal agencies to submit proposals for promoting voter registration and participation within the next 200 days. “Every eligible voter should be able to vote and have that vote counted” Biden said ahead of the signing at a virtual event commemorating 1965’s “Bloody Sunday,” during which police beat Black protesters demanding the right to vote while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. “I also urge Congress to fully restore the Voting Rights Act, named in John Lewis ‘ honor,” Biden added.
• The world economy is expected to grow by 6% in 2021, the fastest growth in almost half a century, Oxford Economics said. If the U.S. and China grow at the same rate, the U.S. will make a bigger contribution to the recovery, since the U.S. economy is about a third larger than China’s overall, The Wall Street Journal reported. Goldman Sachs has estimated that the U.S. economy will grow 7% this year after shrinking 3.5% last year, while China will grow 8% in 2021 after growing 2.3% in 2020.
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