NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global equity markets bounced back on Friday as investors took in stride the U.S. Federal Reserve’s outlook for a long road to recovery and bet shutdowns to fight the coronavirus pandemic were unlikely to be reinstated widely.
FILE PHOTO: Traders wear masks as they work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., May 28, 2020. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
All three major U.S. stock indexes rebounded from Thursday’s worst single-day drop in three months, regaining a chunk of their losses. In Europe, the STOXX 600 Index snapped a four-day losing streak to add 0.1%.
Still, gold was heading toward its biggest weekly gain since early April as a jump in COVID-19 cases in some U.S. states fed fears that new economic shutdowns might be put in place.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 slumped 5.9%, its steepest one-session loss since March 16, fueled by the Fed’s warning that the U.S. economy would contract by 6.5% this year.
Despite those concerns, Julie Fox, a managing director for private wealth at UBS Financial Services in New York,