US equity markets extended their rally to cap a solid shortened trading week - Dow up +705-points or +2.99% Boeing Co jumped +14.7% after the airplane maker said it would resume production in the Seattle area as early as 20 April. The aerospace and defense company also announced after the close of last Friday’s session (17 April) that said it will resume all commercial-airplane production at its Puget Sound, Washington state-area facilities in "a phased approach this week. The broader S&P500 gained +2.68% (to 2,874.56 and settled above its 50-day moving average). Ford Motor Co gained +3.64% after raising US$8B from corporate debt investors to shore up its balance sheet. The move came after the automotive company lost its investment grade status last month and will see Ford pay investors interest of between 8.50% and 9.625% on the new debt securities (having sold similarly-dated securities with a yield of under <4.4% in 2016). The technology-centric NASDAQ +1.38%. Gilead Sciences Inc rallied +9.73% in the wake of a report that emerged on on-line healthcare publication STAT News after the close of the last Thursday’s (16 April) session suggesting that a clinical trial of the company’s antiviral drug Remdesivir showed what appears to be promising results in treating Covid-19. In a statement to CNBC, a University of Chicago spokesperson said, “Partial data from an ongoing clinical trial is by definition incomplete and should never be used to draw conclusions about the safety or efficacy of a potential treatment that is under investigation.” Apple Inc fell -1.36% after Goldman Sachs downgraded the company to a ‘Sell’ from a ‘Neutral’ recommendation and cut their target price to US$233 from US$250. The investment bank expects a -36% decline in iPhone units in the second quarter and a -24% decline in the first half of calendar 2020. For the shortened trading week, the Dow rose +2.21%. The S&P500 gained +3.04% to log its first back-to-back weekly gain since early February (having jumped +12.1% in the previous week), with the index now having recouped more than >50% of its coronavirus declines. The Nasdaq gained +6.09%.
