S&P 500: Futures part ways from Wall Street despite grim headlines

• S&P 500 Futures bounces off 3,132 to defy the previous day’s downbeat performance.
• US coronavirus cases crossed 3 million mark, numbers from Victoria recede while Beijing holds zero figure.
• China witnesses further hardships from the US but chooses to open a new national security office in Hong Kong.

S&P 500 Futures recovers from a two-day low while taking the bids near 3,147, up 0.30% on a day, during Wednesday’s Asian session. The US equity gauge took a U-turn from a three-week top the previous day amid the fears of the coronavirus (COVID-19) resurgence and escalation of the Sino-American tussle.

Virus numbers from the US continue to flash red signals with the latest addition in new cases refreshing a record above three million. Figures from California and Los Angeles County have also surged by over 10,201 and 4,015 respectively. Elsewhere, Victoria marked weakness in the numbers from 191 to 134 while Beijing bucked the trend with zero cases for the second day in a row.

Talking about the geopolitics, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised bars for Chinese diplomat visas while also being in talks with other Trump administration members to undermine the Hong Kong dollar peg. Further, Australia warned citizens to travel to the dragon nation of arbitrary detention. Though, Chinese policymakers shrug off all to establish a new security law office in Hong Kong.

It should be noted that the fears of the virus resurgence and global tussles with the dragon nation portrayed a downbeat performance of Wall Street on Tuesday. Also marking the risk-off sentiment were the US 10-year Treasury yields that dropped 4.4 basis points (bps) to revisit the multi-week low, currently around 0.65%.

Given the qualitative catalysts’ dominance over the market mood, a light calendar is less likely to disappoint the market watchers. However, the optimists are likely to wait for a bit longer before retaking the reins.