US President Donald Trump, accused of initially understating the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, declared a state of emergency on Friday to deal with the crisis.
“To unleash the full power of the federal government’s resources, I officially declare a national emergency,” he said from the White House gardens. The president said the move would provide up to 50 billion dollars to fight the virus. “I call on every state (in the country) to immediately set up emergency centers” and hospitals to activate their emergency preparedness plans “to meet the needs of the Americans,” added the president, who also announced “a sharp increase” in capabilities to test the virus in the United States.
Trump says he has “no symptoms” of coronavirus
Donald Trump said Friday had “no symptoms” of the coronavirus, even if it has not been tested.
“We have a doctor in the White House, I should say many doctors in the White House, I asked them and they said ‘you have no symptoms’“assured the American president during a press conference, while some people around him have been quarantined in recent days.
Dramatic rebound on Wall Street after Trump’s state of emergency
The New York Stock Exchange rebounded strongly Friday after its worst session since the stock market crash in October 1987, benefiting from an impressive revival at the very end of the session after the proclamation by Donald Trump of the state of emergency facing the coronavirus epidemic.
Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, soared 9.36% to 23,185.62 points, while the Nasdaq, with a strong technological coloring, climbed 9.34% to 7,874.23 points.
The broad S&P 500 index gained 9.28% to 2,710.95 points.
They thus regained almost all the ground lost Thursday when, faced with the multiplication of containment measures and the announcement in dispersed order of several plans to support the economy, panic had completely swept the markets. The Dow Jones had collapsed by 10%.
On Friday, the indices first benefited from a quasi-reflex rebound after such a significant fall, before limiting their gains.
But they suddenly accelerated their progress at the very end of the session, while the American president, accused of having initially minimized the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, detailed the measures accompanying the proclamation of the state of emergency.
This decision should notably allow access to up to $ 50 billion in funds.
“The good news is that the market has not completely capitulated, the decline has been temporarily stopped,” said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities. “This does not mean that we will regain force immediately but the worst of the panic is undoubtedly over,” says the expert.
Over the week, despite the striking rebound on Friday, the Dow Jones posted a loss of 10.4%, the Nasdaq of 8.2% and the S&P 500 of 8.8%.
According to several observers, the market turmoil will not really stop until the number of cases of new patients begins to reverse. The funds released by the administration should make it possible to move more quickly towards this objective.
“It is normal for the markets to rebound after a peak in panic like the one observed on Thursday” but “this rebound will probably not be linear and we will probably have several more sessions in which the indices will gain or lose 4% or 5%”, advances Nathan Thooft, portfolio manager at Manulife Asset Management.
But “if the feeling of panic is, on some days, similar to that which one could feel during the 2008 crisis”, the crisis of the new coronavirus “is unique in its kind” and “the situation of the economy doesn’t is not at all the same as it was then, “he said. “The recovery will not be as long as after the great financial crisis,” says the expert.
Sign of a slight revival of confidence among investors: the rate on the debt of the United States at 10 years passed Friday above the symbolic threshold of 1%.
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