It’s a regular day of business for the U.S. stock market on Monday, October 10, as equity exchanges stay open for Columbus Day, a federal holiday that also has been recognized as Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Bond markets, however, take the day off, which means a long weekend for the Treasury market, corporate bonds and other forms of tradable debt, starting after the close of business on Friday.
Stocks have endured a brutal selloff in the first nine months of the year as the Federal Reserve has worked to fight inflation that’s been stuck near it highest levels since the early 1980s.
The central bank’s main tool to battle inflation has been to dramatically increase interest rates, while also shrinking its balance sheet, in an effort to tighten financial conditions and squelch demand for goods and services, while also bringing down stubbornly high costs of living, including food, shelter and energy prices.
The Fed’s focus in recent months also has been on cooling the roaring labor market, with strong wage gains in the past year viewed as one of several culprits behind elevated inflation.
Friday’s jobs report for September pegged the unemployment rate as matching a prepandemic low of 3.5%, dashing hopes for now of a significant trend toward a pullback in the labor market.
The S&P 500 index SPX, -3.03%
tumbled 1.9% on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -2.39%
was down 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -3.89%
was off 2.6%. And early October rally had offered some hope for a bounce for stocks, after a brutal first nine months for investors.
Bonds also have undergone a painful repricing this year as volatility tied to the Fed’s monetary tightening campaign has eroded the value of bonds issued in the past decade of low rates.
The S&P 500 is down about 23% for the year, the Dow off 19% and the Nasdaq off 31% since January. The 10-year Treasury rate TMUBMUSD10Y, 3.884%
was near 3.9% Friday, after recently touching 4%, it’s highest since 2010
Oil futures climbed for a fifth session in a row on Friday, with prices for the front-month U.S. contract ending 16.5% higher for the week. “For several weeks, fears about a weakening global economy had been weighing on oil prices,” said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth Management. “This week, however, sentiment changed after OPEC+ showed the world that it is prepared to cut supply to defend the price in the face of political and central bank opposition from the U.S. and other countries.” U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery CLX22, +5.37%
rose $4.19, or 4.7%, to settle at $92.64 barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the highest front-month finish since Aug. 29, FactSet data show.
No new intelligence led to President Joe Biden saying on Thursday that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a White House spokeswoman said Friday. Briefing reporters aboard Air Force One, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said there is no information that Russia is preparing to “imminently” use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine. Speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “a guy I know fairly well” and the Russian leader was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.” Jean-Pierre said Biden was criticizing Putin’s comments about nuclear weapons.
New York City’s subways are back up and running after they were suspended earlier Friday over an incident in which someone sprayed an unknown substance that made people sick, CBS News reported. The incident happened shortly after 10 a.m. and led to the suspension of trains in Midtown and Lower Manhattan. Police said the substance caused people to vomit and cough and that one person was taken to hospital for treatment. “Following a short suspension of service on lines serving Union Square due to FDNY and NYPD response at that station, regular service has resumed. The cause of the incident leading to that response appears isolated,” the MTA said in a statement.
A large number of U.S. COVID deaths could be prevented if patients would take Paxlovid, the antiviral developed by Pfizer PFE, -1.79%
that helps reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, according to White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha.
Jha told the New York Times that the average daily death count could be reduced to about 50 a day from 400 currently, if every American aged 50 and above that tests positive for the virus took a course of either Paxlovid or used monoclonal antibodies.
“The public doesn’t seem to understand that the evidence around hospitalization and deaths is really powerful,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco told the paper.
The issue seems to be a combination of worry about certain issues that Paxlovid can cause, including a strange metallic taste and the potential for “rebound COVID,” where patients quickly become reinfected after the five-day course of pills has been completed. That happened to both President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden recently.
The second reason is that many Americans — and Republicans, in particular — have refused to take COVID seriously and are not willing to take steps to reduce its impact. Trials have found Paxlovid to be effective across all age groups, but mostly among older patients. But as the COVID death rate for people under 50 is already close to zero, reducing it in a statistically significant way is difficult.
The news comes as U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, with data generally not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 41,605 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 25% from two weeks ago. Cases are declining in northeastern states including New York and New Jersey, while cases are rising in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 11% at 27,021, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 391.
• Molnupiravir, the COVID pill developed by Merck MRK, +0.18%
and privately held Ridgeback Therapeutics, produced mixed results in two recent studies, the companies said Thursday. Early data from a trial conducted in the U.K. by the University of Oxford found no evidence of a difference when molnupiravir was added to usual care in reducing hospitalizations and death. A second study conducted in Israel found a benefit in patients who were 65 and older, but no benefit for 40- to 60-year-olds.
• Homelessness is surging in the U.S. again as pandemic programs that halted evictions are being phased out, the Associated Press reported. The overall number of homeless people in a federal report to be released in the coming months is expected to be higher than the 580,000 unhoused before the coronavirus outbreak, the National Alliance to End Homelessness said. The AP tallied results from city-by-city surveys conducted earlier this year and found the number of people without homes is up overall compared with 2020 in areas reporting results so far.
• The idea was to have China in stable and tip-top shape when thousands of delegates gather in Beijing to usher in a historic third term in power for Xi Jinping, BBC News reported. However, the coronavirus is not playing nicely. In recent weeks, tens of millions of people have again been confined to their homes in lockdowns across 60 towns and cities, and this is bringing political pressure on the man who has become the most powerful Chinese figure since the first communist-era leader, Mao Zedong.
Covid-19 lockdowns, corruption crackdowns and more have put China’s economy on a potential crash course. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains how China’s economic downturn could harm the U.S. and the rest of the world. Illustration: David Fang
• A new COVID-19 wave appears to be brewing in Europe as cooler weather arrives, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion over types of available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake, Reuters reported. The omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 that dominated this summer are still behind the majority of infections, but newer omicron subvariants are gaining ground. Hundreds of new forms of omicron are being tracked by scientists, the World Health Organization said this week.
The U.S. leads the world with 96.6 million cases and 1,062,130 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.8 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 110.5 million have had a booster, equal to 48.9% of the vaccinated population, and 24.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 37.9% of those who received a first booster.
Some 11.5 million people have had a shot of the new bivalent booster that targets the new omicron subvariants.
New York City subways have been suspended in much of Midtown and Lower Manhattan on Friday, after police said that someone had sprayed an unknown substance during a dispute that was causing passengers to become sick, CBS News reported. The incident took place shortly after 10 a.m. ET on a platform at the Union Square station, according to CBS. Police said the substance had caused people to vomit and cough. For now, the The N/Q/R/W/4/5/6 lines are suspended while authorities investigate, and L trains from Brooklyn are not running in Manhattan.
Treasury yields rose Friday after the U.S. September payrolls report showed a surprise decline in unemployment as well as strong growth in wages, making a pivot in Fed policy less likely.
What’s happening
The yield on the 2-year Treasury TMUBMUSD02Y, 4.307%
rose 5 basis points to 4.31%
The yield on the 10-year Treasury TMUBMUSD10Y, 3.894%
rose 5 basis points to 3.89%.
The yield on the 30-year Treasury TMUBMUSD30Y, 3.858%
increased 3 basis points to 3.82%.
What’s driving markets
The U.S. created 263,000 nonfarm jobs in September — roughly in line with expectations — with the unemployment rate falling to 3.5% from 3.7%, while the year-over-year growth rate in hourly wages was 5%.
The unemployment decline was a surprise to economists who had anticipated a steady jobless picture.
Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller late on Thursday said he didn’t expect the jobs report to change anyone’s thinking at the central bank. New York Fed President John Williams will have the opportunity to comment on the data when he speaks at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Ahead of the release, strategists at ING said the price action this week suggests the market has moved away from the early Fed policy pivot idea. “We may well have seen the structural top at 4% for the 10 year, or thereabouts, but we also feel we’re liable to see it at least one more time. There is a large fall in market rates to come, but we’re not at that point just yet,” they added.
OSLO, Norway (AP) — This year’s Nobel Peace Prize is going to jailed Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties, the award’s judges said Friday.
Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the judges wanted to honor ”three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence in the neighbor countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.”
“Through their consistent efforts in favor of human values and anti-militarism and principles of law, this year’s laureates have revitalized and honored Alfred Nobel’s vision of peace and fraternity between nations, a vision most needed in the world today,” she told reporters in Oslo.
The award follows a tradition of highlighting groups and activists trying to prevent conflicts, alleviate hardship and protect human rights.
Three scientists jointly won the prize in physics Tuesday. Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger had shown that tiny particles can retain a connection with each other even when separated, a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, that can be used for specialized computing and to encrypt information.
French author Annie Ernaux won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature Thursday. The panel commended her for blending fiction and autobiography in books that fearlessly mine her experiences as a working-class woman to explore life in France since the 1940s.
The 2022 Nobel Prize in economics will be announced on Monday.
The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on Dec. 10. The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, in 1895.
Credit Suisse Group AG said Friday that it is offering to repurchase debt securities for a total of close to $3 billion as the troubled lender looks to manage its liabilities ahead of a touted restructuring.
CSGN, +3.13%
is offering to buy back eight euro- or pound sterling-denominated senior debt securities for a total of up to 1 billion euros ($979.2 million,) it said.
It is also offering to buy back 12 U.S. dollar-denominated securities for up to $2 billion. Both offers are subject to various conditions and will expire on Nov. 3 and Nov. 10, respectively, Credit Suisse said.
The value of some Credit Suisse bonds fell at the beginning of this week alongside shares in the lender amid speculation over its financial health. The bank has moved to reassure investors ahead of a planned strategy update due on Oct. 27 alongside quarterly results.
Write to Joshua Kirby at joshua.kirby@wsj.com; @joshualeokirby
The judge in a legal battle between Twitter Inc. TWTR, -3.72%
and Tesla Inc. TSLA, -1.11%
Chief Executive Elon Musk on Thursday delayed their trial, previously set for Oct. 17, to give the sides time to close the $44 billion acquisition at the heart of the beef. Trial was set to begin Oct. 17 in Delaware Chancery Court, but Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled Thursday afternoon that the two sides would have until Oct. 28 to close the transaction. If Musk has not closed on his deal to buy Twitter by then, a trial date will be set for November, the judge ruled.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. shares fell in the extended session Thursday after the chip maker cut its already conservative forecast because a drop in PC sales after two years of pandemic-driven sales appears worse than feared.
AMD AMD, -0.13%
shares fell as much as 4% after hours, following a 0.1% decline in the regular session to close at $67.85.
Late Thursday, the company forecast third-quarter revenue of about $5.6 billion with adjusted gross margin of 50%.
“The PC market weakened significantly in the quarter,” said Lisa Su, AMD’s chair and chief executive, in a statement. “While our product portfolio remains very strong, macroeconomic conditions drove lower-than-expected PC demand and a significant inventory correction across the PC supply chain.”
AMD expects a 40% drop in client sales to about $1 billion, compared with Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $2.04 billion.
Analysts polled by FactSet currently forecast third-quarter revenue of $6.71 billion, and annual sales of $26.13 billion. AMD is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on Nov. 1.
“The gross-margin shortfall to expectations was primarily due to lower revenue driven by lower client processor unit shipments and average selling price,” AMD said. “In addition, the third-quarter results are expected to include approximately $160 million of charges primarily for inventory, pricing and related reserves in the graphics and client businesses.”
U.S. stocks finished lower on Thursday for the second day in a row as Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari played down the odds of the Fed pausing its interest-rate hikes, while investors awaited an update on the state of the U.S. labor market due out Friday. The S&P 500 SPX, -1.02%
finished down 38.76 points, or 1%, at 3,744.52. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.15%
retreated 346.93 points, or 1.2%, to 29,926.94, while the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.68%
fell 75.33 points, or 0.7%, to 11,073.31.
President Joe Biden on Thursday said he will pardon all prior federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana. “There are thousands of people who have prior federal convictions for marijuana possession, who may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result,” Biden said in a statement. “My action will help relieve the collateral consequences arising from these convictions.” In addition, Biden said he is urging governors to take the same step, and that he is asking the attorney general and secretary of health and human services to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Marijuana is now in the same category as heroin and LSD.
The U.S. is at risk of prolonging the COVID pandemic if it fails to back an initiative that aims to get vaccines, diagnostics and treatments to lower-income countries, a congressional group has told President Joe Biden.
In a letter to Biden from the group led by Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, the group urged him to back the World Trade Organization’s agreement in June to ease exports of lifesaving therapies.
“With more than 600 million shots in arms, 21,500 free testing sites, the ability to order at-home tests for free, and more treatments available now than at any point in the pandemic, the outlook in the United States is better than ever. Unfortunately, however, the prospect for many low-income countries is not so positive — putting the United States’ own success in jeopardy,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter was sent ahead of a meeting of the WTO council for trade-related aspects of IP rights that is due to kick off Thursday.
The group noted that lower-income countries are facing a higher risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death as only a small percentage of their populations are vaccinated. Just 19% of people in those countries are vaccinated, compared with about 75% in high-income countries, according to the Multilateral Leaders Taskforce on COVID-19, a joint initiative of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the WTO.
U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, where the data are not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 43,149 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 23% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in most northeastern states by 10% of more, while cases in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon are rising.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 11% at 27,184, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 391.
The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual Covid shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to Covid could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes
• China’s huge Xinjiang region has been hit with sweeping COVID travel restrictions ahead of a key Communist Party congress later this month, the Associated Press reported. Trains and buses in and out of the region of 22 million people have been suspended, and passenger numbers on flights have been reduced to 75% of capacity in recent days, according to Chinese media reports. The region is home to minorities who have been forced into prison-like re-education centers to force them to renounce their religion, typically Islam, and allegedly subjected to human-rights abuses.
• Five current or former Internal Revenue Service workers have been charged with fraud for illegally getting money from federal COVID-19 relief programs and using a total of $1 million for luxury items and personal trips, prosecutors said, the AP reported. The U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said Tuesday that the five have been charged with wire fraud after they filed fake applications for the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which were part of a federal stimulus package tied to the pandemic response in 2020.
• Peloton Interactive Inc. PTON, +3.84%
said it plans to cut about 500 jobs, roughly 12% of its remaining workforce, in the company’s fourth round of layoffs this year as the connected fitness-equipment maker tries to reverse mounting losses, the Wall Street Journal reported. After enjoying a strong run early on in the pandemic, Peloton has struggled since the start of the U.S. recovery, and CEO Barry McCarthy, who took over in February, said he is giving the unprofitable company another six months or so to significantly turn itself around and, if it fails, Peloton likely isn’t viable as a stand-alone company.
The U.S. leads the world with 96.6 million cases and 1,061,490 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 67.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 109.9 million have had a booster, equal to 48.8% of the vaccinated population, and 23.9 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 36.6% of those who received a first booster.
Some 7.6 million people have had a shot of one of the new bivalent boosters that target the new omicron subvariants that have become dominant around the world.
President Joe Biden “is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” said a White House statement on Wednesday from National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and top economic adviser Brian Deese. “In light of today’s action, the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices,” the statement also said. In addition, the statement said Biden will continue to direct Strategic Petroleum Reserves releases “as appropriate to protect American consumers and promote energy security,” and he is directing the Energy Department’s secretary to “explore any additional responsible actions to continue increasing domestic production in the immediate term.” Earlier Wednesday, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, John Kirby, defended Biden’s July trip to Saudi Arabia following the news that a key panel has recommended the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies cut oil CL00, +1.34%
production.
The numbers: The U.S. international trade deficit fell in August to a 15-month low of $67.4 billion, paving the way for a resumption of growth in gross domestic product in the third quarter.
The deficit narrowed 4.3% from $70.5 billion in July, the government said Wednesday. It was the fifth decline in a row.
Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a deficit of $67.7 billion.
GDP contracted in the first two quarters, meeting an old rule-of-thumb for when an economy is in recession.
Big picture: The U.S. trade deficit has tumbled since peaking at a record $106.9 billion in March. Exports have risen and imports have declined, particularly because of falling oil prices.
Lower trade deficits add to GDP, the official scorecard of the economy. The shrinking trade gap is set to add a whopping 3 points to third-quarter GDP, according to estimates from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
That’s the mirror opposite of what happened in the first quarter, when the record trade gap caused GDP to turn negative for the first time since early in the pandemic.
The result: GDP is set to rise for the first time in three quarters, ending at least for now any talk that the U.S. is already in recession.
Which way the trade deficit trends in the months ahead is less clear. A strong dollar is hurting U.S. exporters while a slowing economy could force Americans to reduce spending on imports even though they are cheaper to buy.
Ditto for the economy. While it’s still growing, the pace of expansion is expected to slow as the Federal Reserve jacks up interest rates to try to tame high inflation.
Key details: Exports slipped 0.3% in August to a $258.9 billion, but it’s still the second highest level on record.
Imports dropped 1.1% to $326.3 billion, marking the lowest level since early 2021.
Looking ahead: “The further sharp decline in the trade deficit… means that net exports provided a big boost to third-quarter GDP growth,” said senior U.S. economist Andrew Hunter at Capital Economics. “But the twin drags from the surging dollar and the deteriorating global economy suggest that strength will fade soon.”
Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.27%
and S&P 500 SPX, +0.20%
sank in Wednesday trades following a two-day rally.
A strong fall COVID booster campaign could save about 90,000 people living in the U.S. from dying of the virus and avoid more than 936,000 hospitalizations, according to a new study by the Commonwealth Fund.
As immunity wanes and new variants that can evade protection from early vaccines emerge, surges in hospitalizations and deaths are increasingly likely this fall and winter, the authors wrote. That makes it important that people get the bivalent boosters recently authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and help stop transmission, they wrote.
Researchers analyzed three scenarios to evaluate the impact of vaccination on reducing fatalities, hospitalizations and medical costs to both the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
The first measured the outcome if daily vaccination rates remain unchanged from current levels; they have gradually declined since the first wave of the omicron variant. Federal financial support has also not been replenished, amid a perception among many Americans that the pandemic is over and as congressional Republicans oppose legislative efforts to continue the pandemic fight.
As of Oct. 3, some 68% of the U.S. population has had primary shots, but fewer than half of those have received a booster dose, and only 36% of those aged 50 and older have had a second booster.
The second and third Commonwealth Fund scenarios looked at outcomes if rates increased by the end of 2022.
In one scenario, researchers imagined booster uptake would track flu-shot coverage in 2020 to 2021. The other scenario assumed 80% of eligible individuals 5 and older get a booster by the end of 2022.
Source: Commonwealth Fund
The data found that more than 75,000 deaths could be prevented along with more than 745,000 hospitalizations if coverage reaches similar levels to 2021 to 2022 flu vaccination. The best scenario would save $56 billion in direct medical costs over the course of the next six months.
“Stratifying by insurance type, we found direct medical costs would be reduced by $11 billion for Medicare alone under scenario 1 and $13 billion under scenario 2,” the authors wrote. “An additional $3.5 to $4.5 billion in savings would accrue to Medicaid. Even if the federal government paid all vaccination costs, accelerated campaigns would generate more than $10 billion in net savings from federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid.”
The study comes as U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people are testing at home, with data not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 44,484 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 22% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in most northeastern states by 10% of more, while cases in the are rising in the western states Montana, Washington and Oregon.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 12% at 27,334, while the daily average for deaths is down 8% to 393.
The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual Covid shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to Covid could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes
• Long COVID, a condition that can encompass symptoms such as respiratory distress, cough, “brain fog,” fatigue and malaise that last 12 weeks or longer after initial infection, is becoming a long-term challenge as both employers and workers navigate an ever-mutating virus, according to Liz Seegert, writing for NextAvenue.org. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in five COVID survivors younger than 65 experienced at least one incident that might be related to previous COVID-19 infection. Among those 65 and older, the rate was one in four. Their data also show that nearly three times as many people age 50 to 59 currently have long COVID than those 80 or older.
• A retired judge opened a public inquiry on Tuesday into how Britain handled the coronavirus pandemic, saying bereaved families and those who suffered would be at the heart of the proceedings, the Associated Press reported. Former Court of Appeal judge Heather Hallett said the inquiry would investigate the U.K.’s preparedness for a pandemic, how the government responded, and whether the “level of loss was inevitable or whether things could have been done better.”
With each mutation, the Covid-19 virus is becoming more transmissible. WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez breaks down the science of how Covid variants are getting better at infecting and spreading. Illustration: Rami Abukalam
• Health experts are keeping an eye on new versions of the BA.5 omicron subvariant amid concerns those virus versions can evade the drugs developed to fight COVID, Salon reported. Of particular concern are two named BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, along with BA.2.75.2, which is spreading in Singapore, India and parts of Europe. Then there’s XBB, which some research suggest is the most antibody-evasive strain tested so far. The World Health Organization said in its weekly update on the virus that BA.5 descendent lineages continued to be dominant in the latest week, accounting for 80.8% of sequences shared through a global database. It also noted “increased diversity” within omicron and its lineages.
• Eiger BioPharmaecuticals Inc. EIGR, -5.01%
said Wednesday it will not pursue emergency authorization of its experimental treatment for mild and moderate COVID-19 infections. It had asked the Food and Drug Administration to consider an EUA application based on data from the Together trial, a Phase 3 study that has assessed 11 possible treatments for COVID-19 that is being conducted in Brazil and Canada. Eiger said the FDA instead recommended the company consider running its own pivotal trial for peginterferon lambda that would support full approval of the drug.
The U.S. leads the world with 96.5 million cases and 1,060,446 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 225.3 million people living in the U.S., equal to 67.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 109.9 million have had a booster, equal to 48.8% of the vaccinated population, and 23.9 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 36.6% of those who received a first booster.
Some 7.6 million people have had a shot of the new bivalent booster that targets the new omicron subvariants that have become dominant around the world.
The Republican Party has an edge again in the generic ballot, and that advantage has reached a level last seen in late July, according to a RealClearPolitics average for that closely watched indicator.
Republicans are now scoring 46.0% support in the RCP average of generic ballots, a percentage point ahead of Democrats at 45.0%.
The GOP hit a 1-point edge last Wednesday, then saw a dip, but as of Tuesday was back at that level, as shown in the chart below.
It’s not a big advantage, but it’s the best showing for Republicans in RCP’s data for generic ballots since July 28, as Democrats had the advantage for much of August and September.
The generic ballot refers to a poll question that asks voters which party they would support in a congressional election without naming individual candidates. Analysts tend to see it as a useful indicator.
Other websites focused on political analysis and forecasting, such as FiveThirtyEight, still show Democrats with an edge in their data for generic ballots.
Election Day for the midterm contests is now five weeks away. Democrats have focused their campaigns on abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, while Republicans have seized on Americans’ frustration with high inflation.
The additional chart below is interactive and shows RCP’s data for the generic ballot over a longer time frame.
U.S. stocks opened lower Wednesday, giving back some of this week’s sharp gains as Treasury yields rise and investors assess data showing job growth in September. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.14%
fell 1% soon after the bell, while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.20%
dropped 1.1% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.25%
slid 1.4%, according to FactSet data, at last check. U.S. private sector employers added 208,000 jobs last month, up from a revised 185,000 in August, according to ADP’s employment report Wednesday. September’s employment growth was slightly stronger than the 200,000 of job gains expected by economists polled by the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note jumped about 10 basis points Wednesday to around 3.72%.
A key panel on Wednesday recommended that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, according to news reports. The recommendation by the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee comes ahead of a meeting of OPEC+ delegates in Vienna that’s slated to begin shortly. Expectations for a cut of around 2 million barrels a day have helped lift crude futures this week. West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery CL.1, +0.24%
on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 0.9% to $87.31 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while December Brent crude BRN00, +0.35%,
the global benchmark, was up 1% at $92.72 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
