US equity markets concluded another volatile week of trading in the red following the release of the official March non-farm payrolls report that ended 113-month consecutive months of employment growth - Dow dropped -361-points or -1.69%. American Express Co (down -3.99%), UnitedHealth (-4.55%) and International Business Machines Corp (IBM) (-3.33%) fell more than >3% each to lead the Dow lower. The broader S&P500 fell -1.51%. Utilities (down -3.62%), Materials (-2.34%), Financials (-2.23%) and Communication Services (-2.20%) all fell over -2% to lead eleven of the twelve primary sectors lower. Consumer Staples (up +0.54%) was the only sector to advance, with Walmart Inc rose +0.70% after the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that sales from Walmart’s over 4,700 US stores increased nearly 20% over the past four weeks compared with the same period a year earlier. Sales on Walmart.com rose over >30% over the past eight weeks, with downloads of Walmart's online grocery mobile app skyrocketing, according to documents viewed by the WSJ. United Airlines Holdings Inc (UAL) fell -8.15% in the extended session (having lost -2.28% in the regular session) after the airline announced an ~80% capacity cut for April and expects even larger cuts in May. UAL said it will evaluate and cancel flights on a rolling 90-day basis until demand recovers. The airline said it is losing more than US$100M a day in revenue and that it expects fourth-quarter revenue to be down at least 30% from the year-ago period. UAL has also reportedly filed for a federal grant in order to keep paying employees.Delta Air Lines Inc fell -11.48% in the extended session (having dipped -0.88% in regular trading) after the carrier said its second quarter will be "even more difficult than the first", while Chief Executive Ed Bastian said that the company is “burning more than $60M in cash every day” and “we know we still haven't seen the bottom". Mr Bastian said that Delta’s April schedule will be about 80% smaller than planned, with 115,000 flights cancelled,. Mr Bastian also said that the airline has applied for government support but that the funds alone “are not nearly enough” as revenue is expected to be down 90% for the second quarter. Without action, that government’s relief funds would be gone by June, Mr Bastian said. Separately, Warren Buffett's investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway Inc disclosed on Friday (3 April) that it had sold ~18% of its stake (~13M shares or ~US$314M) in Delta and ~4% of its holding (~2.3m shares or ~US$74M) in Southwest Airlines Co (-3.05%) The NASDAQ -1.53%. The latest data released by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) late on Friday (3 April) recorded that global chip sales momentum stalled in February due a slowing in demand from China amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While worldwide February sales rose 5% to $34.5B from a year ago, they declined 2.4% from January's sales of $35.4 billion, with sales from China falling 7.5% from January. "Global semiconductor sales in February were solid overall, outpacing sales from last February, but month-to-month demand in the China market slipped significantly and the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global market has yet to be captured in available sales numbers," said John Neuffer, SIA president and chief executive.
