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Dow futures plunge 500 points as Trump says he tested positive for Covid-19

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 500 points. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were also in negative territory.
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Stock futures fell in early morning trading Friday after President Donald Trump said he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 500 points. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were also in negative territory.

Meanwhile, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury Note fell to 0.6578 percent. Yields move opposite prices.

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Earlier, investors watched stimulus developments after the House passed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus plan Thursday night, although Democrats and the Trump administration remaining divided over key items in the legislation.

The bill likely will not get through the Republican-held Senate and become law. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has opposed the legislation as his caucus resists spending trillions more on the federal response to the pandemic.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met earlier Thursday in a last-minute effort to ink a deal for another coronavirus relief package, but they remained at odds.

"Markets are being surprisingly resilient ... in the absence of actual stimulus progress," Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance, told CNBC. "Clearly markets are watching what's happening between Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi, and I think they're cautiously optimistic that some type of comprise will be made."

Stocks rose Thursday after both the Dow and S&P 500 spent some of the session in negative territory.

The Dow closed 35 points higher, for a gain of 0.1 percent, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.5 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the relative outperformer, gaining 1.4 percent.

Investors will get a read on the state of the economic recovery Friday when September's jobs report is released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The final jobs report ahead of the election is expected to show a slowdown from August's levels. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones are expecting 800,000 nonfarm payrolls added, down from 1.37 million in August.

Stocks have staged a record rebound since the economic shutdown sent stocks tumbling in March. But the major averages all finished September lower, snapping a five-month win streak, as doubts emerge about the pace and breadth of the recovery.

Zaccarelli said that while there seems to be a floor under stocks, there needs to be strength from more areas of the market if the market is to continue moving higher into the end of the year.

"For the market to really push higher for the rest of the year, we really need to see some participation from the cyclical sectors," he said, citing industrials and financials in particular.