Despite reality intruding on the last day of the month and sending Wall Street lower, April was still a banner month for stocks.
While all three US stock indexes dipped into the red on the last day of the month the S&P 500 and the Dow posted their largest monthly percentage gains since January 1987, with the Nasdaq having its best month since June 2000.
The three indexes are now well within 20% of record highs reached in February, having quickly rebounded since shut down efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic that brought the world’s largest economy shuddering halt, sending the economy backwards and pushing 30 million people or more onto the jobless rolls.
The Dow fell 288.14 points, or 1.17%, to 24,345.72, the S&P 500 lost 27.08 points, or 0.92%, to 2,912.43 and the Nasdaq dropped 25.16 points, or 0.28% to 8,889.55.
For the month, the Dow gained 11.1%, while the S&P 500 ended April up 12.7%, for their best monthly gains since 1987 and their best April performances since 1938, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Nasdaq saw a monthly return of 15.5%, its best such advance since heady days of the pre-tech wreck days of 2000 and the best April for the technology-laden index on record.
In Australia the ASX 200 futures market has the local market starting May on the back foot with a nasty loss of at least 119 points that built late in the session. It was off 101 points at 5.30 am.
That was after the ASX 200 surged 129.0 points, or 2.4%, to finish April at 5522.4.
Having dropped by the most on record in March, the 8.8% gain in April was the largest on record, trimming its decline from the all-time highs hit in February to 23.3%
From the lows hit on March 23, the index is now up more than 24%, but that looks like being trimmed today.
After the ASX closed, markets received a dose of reality came in the form of another 3.8 million job claims filed last week from 4.4 million the week before. That left 30 million on benefits, meaning US unemployment is close to 20%.
Early GDP data from Europe showed the eurozone contracted at a record rate of 3.8% from the December quarter, France and Italy saw their second quarterly falls, which out them into recession, while the Spanish economy fell more than 4% from the end of 2019.
The European Central Bank revealed new plans to boost lending to banks and companies.
Norway says its cutting oil production by 13% for the rest of this year, ConocoPhillips pushed its output cuts to 420,000 from 200,000 barrels a day, Shell dropped its dividend for the first time in 80 years – a very different stance to BP which is borrowing money to keep its shareholder payout steady.
Inflation eased across Europe and the US in April. Oil continued to recover from the big losses mid-month but still lost ground overall.
