The stock markets of the Asia-Pacific zone began the week in a clear progression. At the same time, Wall Street did better than resist Friday, despite a still worrying health situation in the United States and new tensions between Washington and Beijing … The Stock Exchange in Shanghai climbed 1.4% on Monday, Tokyo even up 2%, followed by Seoul (+ 1.7%), Taiwan (+ 0.95%), Bombay (+ 0.90%) and Sydney (+ 0.75%). Hong Kong rose more modestly by 0.3%. In Japan, car manufacturers are pointing up sharply. Mazda took off (+ 7% at 673 yen), Mitsubishi Motors (+ 5% at 271 yen) or Honda (+ 5% at 2,767.5 yen) stand out in particular.
Wall Street, for its part, therefore also ended in clear progress on Friday evening on encouraging information concerning a potential treatment for Gilead against the coronavirus. According to the American laboratory, its experimental antiviral ‘remdesivir’ would show a “significant improvement” in patients’ health status with Covid-19. Helped by this announcement, the Dow Jones index advanced 1.43% to 26,075 points, while the broad S&P 500 index gained 1.05% to 3,185 pts. The Nasdaq Composite broke new records, at 10,617 pts, up 0.66%.
Gilead Advanced On the Stock Market For 2.2%
Gilead Sciences advanced on the stock market for 2.2% after the publication of new data showing the efficacy of the experimental antiviral remdesivir against COVID-19. The American company indicates that the phase III study data shows a 62% reduction in the mortality rates of patients with Covid-19 treated with remdesivir compared to standard care.
Earlier on Friday, Australian health officials approved the use of remdesivir as the first treatment option for patients with the coronavirus’s most severe forms.
Gilead Sciences Inc is a research-focused biotech company that develops innovative medicines of unmet medical needs. The company tends to simplify care for people worldwide suffering from life treating illness. With head offices in Foster City, CA, Gilead has subsidiaries in 35 countries around the world.
According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the company’s shares on the stock market increased by 18.4% in the first quarter, when the hospital started using its drug for the treatment of COVID patients with acute symptoms.
The public health emergency required that the U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration) issue an emergency authorization to include remdesivir in treating patients with severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Barrel Prices
The barrel of oil finally shows an increase of about 1%, both for the WTI back to more than $ 40 and for Brent at $ 43.30 this morning.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has revised its forecasts upwards for crude demand for 2020, to 92.1 million barrels per day (+400,000 BPD) but warned that the spread of the pandemic of COVID-19 imposed risk to the outlook. While the oil market has undoubtedly made progress, the acceleration of COVID-19 cases is a disturbing reminder that the epidemic is not under control and that the risk for our market prospects is almost certainly downward.
Regarding currencies, the euro stands on the 1.13 / $ between banks this Monday morning, while the American producer price index fell 0.2% in June, against + 0.4% consensus of space and + 0.4% reported a month before. Excluding the food and energy sector, the PPI index was down 0.3% compared to May, against a consensus positioned at + 0.1%. YoY, the index fell by 0.8% (+ 0.1% excluding food and energy).
