Stocks Moving Premarket: Xerox, Pfizer, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton - Barron's

Stocks continued their winning week with another morning of gains on Thursday. Investors shrugged off the latest dire figures illustrating the economic damage being wrought by the coronavirus and welcomed another effort by the Federal Reserve to limit the pain.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 350 points, or 1.5%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were 1.4% and 0.3% higher, respectively.

The indexes had been lower in premarket futures trading, but rallied despite news that 6.6 million people filed initial claims for unemployment benefits in the latest week—bringing the total over the past three weeks to a staggering almost 17 million. That was outweighed by the Fed’s plans to deploy an equally staggering $2.3 trillion in lending to support markets for riskier forms of corporate debt, ease funding strains for states and cities, and provide deferrable loans to small and medium businesses.

The moves go beyond anything the central bank did during the financial crisis just over a decade ago.

The market’s relative strength on Thursday builds on an upbeat day of trading Wednesday, when the Dow rose 3.4%, bringing its gain for the week to 11.3%. It was buoyed by a range of factors including favorable data on the spread of the coronavirus and the exit of Sen. Bernie Sanders from the presidential race.

The S&P 500 also rose 3.5% Wednesday and is up 10.5% for the week. The same numbers for the Nasdaq Composite are 2.6% and 9.7%, respectively.

Also helping to lift stocks on Thursday was news that global growth in new cases of the coronavirus continued to slow—to 6.1% from 6.3%—and U.S. new-case growth dropped to 8.7% from 9.1%, according to data compiled by Deutsche Bank.

Overseas, stocks were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed slightly lower, down 0.04% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 1.4%. The STOXX Europe 600 index rose 1.9%, as Germany’s DAX gained 2%, France’s CAC 40 climbed 2.1%, and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index rose 2.1%.

Oil prices continued moving higher Thursday, with a gain of 6.5%, to $26.73. It extends a recent rally based on hope that both OPEC and non-OPEC producers will reach a deal to reduce output at a meeting on Thursday.

That has shares of energy producers higher as well.

Apache (ticker: APA) shares were 25% higher, partly because the company announced an oil discovery earlier this week. Occidental Petroleum (OXY) stock jumped 10.5%. Stock in the oil-services provider Halliburton (HAL) was up 6.5%. Shares of the diversified oil giant Exxon Mobil (XOM) were up 2%.

Higher oil prices aren’t derailing airline shares, although jet fuel is a large expense for the carriers. United Airlines Holdings (UAL) shares surged 16%, American Airlines Group (AAL) stock was up 11%, and Alaska Air (ALK) shares have risen 11.5%.

Airlines have been badly beaten up by the Covid-19 outbreak. Shares of large U.S. air carriers were down about 56% year to date on average.

Pfizer (PFE) stock was up 1.5% after the Wall Street Journal reported the company identified a lead coronavirus-drug candidate.

Finally, Xerox (XRX) stock was up 2.5% despite Citigroup double-downgrading the shares from Buy all the way to Sell. Typically, Wall Street analysts move ratings one notch at a time, moving from Buy to Hold to Sell.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com and Steve Goldstein at steven.goldstein@wsj.com

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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stocks-moving-premarket-xerox-pfizer-exxon-mobil-halliburton-51586433412

2020-04-09 14:34:00Z
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