AEX starts considerably higher due to hope for corona medicine
Friday, April 17, 2020 8:09 AM
(ABM FN-Dow Jones) The Amsterdam stock exchange awaits a green opening on Friday. One hour before the gong, futures on the AEX index pointed to a profit of 3.3 percent.
US futures are up percentages this morning, after the medical news site Stat reported encouraging initial research results from Gilead Sciences’ virus inhibitor inhibitor.
On Thursday, the AEX index already moved 1.0 percent higher to 496.08 points.
The news site Stat wrote about a third and final clinical trial of remdesivir in a Chicago hospital. There, 125 patients were treated with Covid-19, of which 113 showed severe symptoms. Most patients have recovered by now, and only 2 have died, according to Stat who quoted one from the treating physician.
Remdesivir has been considered one of the most promising treatments for corona patients for several months. It was originally developed as a virus inhibitor against Ebola.
Gilead is currently conducting two studies with remdesivir. At the end of April, Gilead expects to publish the first set of results from a study of 400 patients with severe complaints, and the results of a study of 600 patients with moderate symptoms at the end of May. However, these studies lack a control group, so the results are likely to be difficult to interpret.
Gilead Sciences, which is also a Galapagos partner, posted after-sales in electronic commerce up to 17 percent higher. Futures on the Dow Jones index are about 800 points higher.
On Thursday, the Dow Jones narrowly closed in the green despite a dramatic upturn in US unemployment. The number of new aid applications last week came to 5.245 million, compared to an upwardly revised 6.615 million in the previous week.
“At this rate, unemployment is projected to rise to 20 percent by the end of this month, twice as high as what we saw during the trough of the previous recession,” said ING investment manager Simon Wiersma.
This morning, it was also announced that China’s gross domestic product fell 6.8 percent year-on-year in the past quarter. However, the contraction was less severe than the 8.3 percent economists had expected.
Furthermore, Chinese retail sales were down in March, but significantly less than in the previous two months. The contraction in industrial production also fell sharply, from 13.5 to 1.1 percent on an annual basis. On a monthly basis, there was even a revival of 32 percent in March.
The Asian stock markets are 1 to 3 percent higher this morning.
The oil price fell to an 18-year-old low on Thursday after a slight upturn. On a settlement of $ 19.87, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate on balance did not move from Wednesday.
The euro / dollar currency pair was trading at 1.0874 this morning.
Company news
Shell Australia has made a final investment decision to develop the first phase of Arrow Energy’s Surat Gas Project.
Corona and low oil prices have a strong negative impact this year on the performance of Fugro’s Seabed Geosolutions business. This results in significant depreciation.
Beter Bed posted higher sales in the first quarter, partly due to a strong increase in online sales.
NIBC does not expect to meet the medium-term target of a 10 to 12 percent return on equity this year, due to the corona crisis.
TKH Group reached an agreement to sell Cruxin to Croonwolter & dros, without mentioning any financial details. Cruxin is active in the field of system integration and still had a turnover of 10 million euros in 2019.
Closing positions Wall Street
The S&P 500 index gained 0.6 percent to 2,800 points on Thursday and the Dow Jones index rose 0.1 percent to 23,538 points. The Nasdaq went up 1.7 percent at 8,532 points.
ABM Financial News; [email protected]; Editors: +31 (0) 20 26 28 999.Image: ABM Financial News
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