Tag Archives: COVID

Stock futures were listless in Thursday’s after-hours trade, after market jitters culminated in a four-day losing streak, underscoring how investors are growing more cautious about the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the economy.  During Thursday’s regular session, Wall Street logged a 4th consecutive day of losses. Traders have been struggling to reconcile a seemingly hot jobs market with soaring coronavirus infections that have blunted the recovery’s momentum. With COVID-19 deaths and… Source link

Restaurants walloped by COVID-19 have suffered a silent epidemic of financial woes among an unlikely segment: Franchise eateries. The pandemic’s impact on the food industry has been well chronicled, with many having to shutter, drastically cut staffing and hours, or resort to other desperate measures just to stay afloat. However, some experts say franchises — third party operators licensed by larger brands — are just as vulnerable to closure and operational struggles, like food and… Source link

COVID-19 Delta fears has unleashed the short sellers on the economically sensitive consumer discretionary sector.  Short sellers held 4.57% of outstanding shares in the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector at the end of July, according to new data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Taking a short position in a stock is one’s way of betting on a decline in price.  The percentage of short sellers in the consumer discretionary space has trended higher since April as stimulus check spending… Source link

‘No toilet paper, again?!’ Shoppers report COVID delta shortages and hoarding Remember the bare store shelves and shopping carts overflowing with bulk packages of toilet paper and bottled water during last year’s intial waves of COVID-19? The bleak scenes at the big-box stores may be making a comeback, thanks to the COVID delta variant sweeping the U.S. Don’t be surprised if you can’t find t.p. again at your local Costco store. A new survey finds three-quarters of Americans are already seeing… Source link

(Bloomberg) — U.S. equity-index futures fell and the dollar weakened as investors assessed the outlook for economic recovery and awaited the latest Federal Reserve minutes to gauge the direction of monetary policy. Contracts on the S&P 500 Index slipped 0.1% after the underlying gauge fell on Tuesday by the most in four weeks. The dollar halted a two-day rally and Treasury yields were steady. Oil rebounded from a four-day slump a U.S. industry report pointed to a drop in domestic crude… Source link

Despite COVID-19 Delta variant fears beginning to weigh on consumer confidence and spending plans, the world’s largest retailer Walmart (WMT) says consumer behavior remains stable.  “We are not seeing a major shift in consumer behaviors at this point,” Walmart CFO Brett Biggs told Yahoo Finance when asked about current consumer trends. Biggs said the drivers of consumer spending in recent quarters — a high savings rate and rebounding jobs market — remain intact and are helping to fuel… Source link

Taco Bell (YUM) is stepping into the future latest restaurant design. Dubbed “Taco Bell Defy,” the food giant is doubling down on trends amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, namely digital ordering and delivery. The location is expected to debut in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, but won’t actually open its doors until the summer of 2022. According to the company, the new design concept was developed by Minneapolis-based Vertical Works, and includes a drive-thru experience with four lanes…. Source link

Aug 9 (Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.    Moderna’s vaccine may be best against Delta    The mRNA vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech may be less effective than Moderna’s against the Delta variant of the coronavirus, according to two reports posted on medRxiv on Sunday ahead of peer review. In a study of more than 50,000 patients in the Mayo Clinic Health System… Source link

A volunteer receives an injection from a medical worker during the country’s first human clinical trial for a potential vaccine against the novel coronavirus, at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa, June 24, 2020. Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters A Florida family of an unvaccinated man will hold a vaccine and testing site at his funeral. Marquis Davis wanted to get the vaccine after he was hospitalized but it was too late, his wife told WFTV. The family, along with their church, will offer the… Source link

Stock futures rose in Tuesday evening’s after-hours trading, following a session in which investors momentarily cast aside their fears that a resurgence of COVID-19 cases might derail a red-hot economic recovery.  The week started out with major benchmarks suffering their worst declines of 2021, which took the spotlight from quarterly earnings that have almost uniformly reflected a strong rebound. The rising case count driven by the Delta variant — a more communicable form of COVID-19 —… Source link