This week started with fears of a global recession due to the US-China trade war, which coupled with falling bond yields and unrest in Hong Kong caused markets to fall. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 1.29% to close at 25,896, while the S&P 500 declined by as much as 1.23% this Monday.
As fears over the trade war and global economic growth concerns continued through the week, the demand for government bonds increased, causing US Treasury yields to plummet on Wednesday through Thursday. The spread between the 2 year and 10 year Treasury note yields inverted on Wednesday, while the 30 year Treasury yields dropped to 1.916%, the lowest it has been since the 1970’s.
Meanwhile, the Dow fell another 800.49 (3.1%) points on Wednesday which marked its greatest one-day loss since December 2018. Indices recovered on Thursday with the Dow gaining 0.39% to close at 25,579.39, and the S&P 500 gaining 0.25% to close at 2,847.60.
Gains in the market on Thursday were propelled by Walmart (One of the largest companies by revenue in the world) stock gaining over 6.11% due to outperforming earnings expectations along with Amazon gaining 0.75% due to its “Prime Day” promotion.